The Wolf Inside
by Linda Lupos
Summary: Sequel to Wolf's Fight. HBP from Remus' and Tonks' points of view.
1. The Will

_Author: _Linda Lupos. 

_Rating_: erm… What's the one above PG-13? I think it's going to be that one, because of images, language and Fenrir Greyback…

_Disclaimers_: based heavily on _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ by JK Rowling. Everything you recognise is hers, the rest is mine.

_Pairings_: … read HBP again if you don't know this. Remus/Tonks of course.

_Spoilers:_ all six books, especially the sixth one.

_Author's Note_: and I bravely plough on. But hey, it's not like it's a chore or anything!

This is the fifth instalment already in what has become a series about Remus Lupin, showing the Harry Potter books from his point of view (and, for the Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix ones, Sirius' point of view as well). If you're new to my fics, I seriously recommend reading the others first, because by now my own universe has developed itself so much that lots of this won't make sense if you don't know about the original characters, their relation with Remus and their history.

I said above that I pretty much cranked up the rating 'because of Fenrir Greyback'. That's very true, sadly. Greyback is a thoroughly disgusting person, and I'll write him like one, with all his despicable habits and traits. There'll also be some strong hinting at sex, but nothing really explicit.

Lastly: as with my other fics, I'm planning on posting every two weeks. That's _planning_ – I was planning to do it with _Wolf´s Fight_, my Order of the Phoenix fic, too, but due to school the entire planning got screwed up and I ending up rushing the last four chapters because HBP was coming out. Luckily, I don't have that kind of a deadline this time around, so I can take it easier… Then again, I'll move into another house in September and my housemate will be a girl whom I met because she read my fics, so she'll have the opportunity to nag me for more the entire day!

But we'll see how that works out. But now, there's a story to read. Enjoy!

* * *

**July 1996**

_"But first of all I must tell you that Sirius's will was discovered a week ago and that he left you everything he owned."_

* * *

"Ready?"

"I've never been less ready for anything in my entire life," Remus admitted. "But if we leave this to Molly, Sirius will curse us and make us end up in hell no matter what it'd take him. So we'd better do this."

Tonks gently punched Remus' arm. "C'mon, maybe we'll find a surprise. Or a pair of socks you lend him ages ago and that he never returned."

He gave a small smile. "The second one sounds more likely."

"Even then, it'll be worthwhile. So let's go."

And thus, they bravely picked up their cleaning tools and set to work, trying to tidy up the mess that used to be Sirius' room.

* * *

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that Tonks and Remus would be the ones to clean out Sirius' room. There had been a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix the evening Harry had come home from Hogwarts, the main purpose of which was to discuss what to do now, now Harry had gone back to the Dursleys and the news of Voldemort's return had come out. Among the various topics that had been discussed had been the matter of the Headquarters of the Order. The legal owner of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, Sirius, was now dead, and he hadn't left a will as far as anyone knew. Officially, the house would go to Sirius' nearest living relative – Bellatrix Lestrange. But as she was now a wanted criminal, the chances of her coming up and claiming it were slim. Still, it was better to err on the side of caution, especially with an illegal organisation ("not yet officially approved," Emmeline Vance had corrected hopefully) so they had decided to abandon the Headquarters for the time being. Other houses could serve as a temporary Headquarters until they had settled on a new one.

In other words: time to clean out Grimmauld Place.

Molly had immediately offered to take care of the kitchen and added that the children could do the bedrooms ("it wasn't as if they had anything better to do," she said imperiously; the others present immediately doubted if said children would like the job assigned to them). She had even – somewhat shyly – offered to clean out Sirius' room as well. It had taken this (and, admittedly, a sharp poke from Tonks) to shake Remus out of his reverie – he found that, even though Tonks had pretty much dragged him back a few days ago, he had trouble concentrating on trifle matters such as the Headquarters. Sirius was still occupying his mind. But this was serious business. He knew Sirius would _never _have let Molly go through his things. So he had spoken up and offered to do the job himself, despite rather not doing it. He feared it would bring up painful memories he'd rather forget. Not sensing his hesitation or discomfort, Tonks had immediately offered to help him. The rest of the Order had thought this a most excellent idea – after all, Remus used to be Sirius' best friend and Tonks was Sirius' cousin, so who was better suited for it? Thus, the matter had been set and Remus had been stuck doing a job he'd rather not do. They had resolved to begin early the following day.

So there they were, standing on the threshold looking at the room which used to be so tidy, clean and white. Now, it wasn't so much.

The first problem was that Sirius simply hadn't been a very tidy person. He had never been one to clean up after himself, and the fits of depression he had suffered the past months didn't exactly help to solve this. Secondly, the one doing most of the cleaning, Molly Weasley, had never been allowed inside. Likewise Kreacher, although one could wonder if his activities could really be called cleaning. And then there had been Buckbeak. Turning ones bedroom into a stable is never going to do much for the interior. The brown-yellowish stain on the otherwise cream-coloured floor was proof of that, just like the long scratches on the floor where Buckbeak had sharpened his claws.

_It shows such obvious signs of Sirius. I can almost smell him, even. _

"Remus?" Tonks' voice cut through his thoughts, startling him.

"What?" He now couldn't believe he had been so lost in thoughts – Ron and Ginny were making an enormous racket downstairs, obviously not happy with being forced to spend their first day of the holidays cleaning up.

"Shall we begin?" Tonks asked kindly.

"Yes, let's."

They set to work. Tonks tried to get the stain out of the floor while Remus pulled all the sheets off the bed and collected the clothes that had been strewn across the room.

They didn't talk throughout the day, neither of them felt much like talking, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It felt more as if they were barely even aware of each other's presence, much too caught up in what they were doing. It was strange, going through Sirius' belongings like this and knowing that the owner would not, would never again burst in and reprimand them for snooping around. It made the fact that Sirius was dead even more palpable than the past two weeks of grieving had done.

* * *

They didn't really sit down and talk until two days later. The house was quiet: the bedrooms had finally been cleaned out, the kitchen was as clean as Molly could make it (in other words: very clean) and there was nobody left but them and Kreacher. The house-elf, however, was usually ignored, and he ignored them, with suited all three of them just fine.

They had cleaned out Sirius' closet, stripped his bed, cleaned the bathroom and managed to turn the stain from brown-yellow to light beige. It was still visible, but not as intrusive. Now, having done the more laborious cleaning, they set to do the worst part: sort through Sirius' personal belongings, such as the staggering amount of papers he had collected the past three years.

Tonks had spread it all out on the bed, all the newspapers, clippings, letters and notes. "I suggest you sort through the notes," she said. "I do the newspapers."

"And the letters?" Remus asked. The letters were the most personal, and he wasn't at all sure if he wanted to read them.

Tonks seemed to feel the same, for she hesitated a moment before saying: "we can decide on the letters later." Remus had absolutely no inclination to disagree, so he nodded, took the notes and began leafing through them to see if there was anything worth keeping.

From the looks of it, there wasn't much. Most of it seemed to be just reminders to tell someone something or do something or other. Remus couldn't help but smile when he found several sheets of parchment on which Sirius had drafted an elaborate code to use when writing to Harry. He laid it aside – in later years, it would be interesting to read back. The rest, however, was not worth keeping, so he threw it on the large rubbish pile on which Tonks had already laid several newspapers.

"Anything interesting?" he asked her.

"If you're interested in old newspapers," she replied. She looked up. "Some of them are from _years_ ago. Look, this one is from 1994, it's about the Triwizard Tournament." She handed him the newspaper. "He must've been so desperate for news."

"I know," he said, quickly scanning the article which had been encircled by Sirius. "He was always asking me for more news, to send me newspapers as often as I could."

"I can barely imagine how it must've felt for him," Tonks said softly.

"Yeah," he said vaguely. What _had_ it felt like, being cut off from everything and everybody you knew? Not just a short while, but for years on end. He didn't know: Sirius had never told him.

"Do you miss him?" she asked abruptly.

He looked up. "What?"

"Do you miss him?" She didn't look at him, but at the newspapers in her lap instead.

"I…" He wasn't at all sure what she was getting at. "Of course I do."

"I wasn't sure – I mean, you barely talk."

Remus couldn't decide if she was accusing him, awkwardly trying to make conversation or trying to say something without saying it. He put the newspaper down and shifted his position until he was sitting next to her. She still avoided his gaze, her hair – black, like Sirius's had been – hiding her eyes.

"Listen," he said. "It's true that I don't talk. I rarely do, and more people than you can imagine have scolded me for it, Sirius prominently among them. Trust me when I said that I miss him insanely much – if only because he told me to open up more." She still didn't look at him, but he felt she was listening, so he continued. Talking was easier when she wasn't looking at him. "Sirius… Sirius did just that – he drew me out. He was that part of me that I knew was missing. He was everything I wasn't but almost desperately wanted to be. Outspoken, easygoing, charming, daring. He thought up plans and did it. I was always too careful – too afraid."

"Not too afraid," she corrected, finally looking at him. She had tears in her eyes. "You weren't too afraid, don't you say that."

"Tonks, what's wrong?" he asked. He realised this wasn't about him, not really.

She held up the newspaper. "This."

He took it. Unlike the one he had held before, this newspaper was only a few months old. Staring back up at him were the faces of the twelve Death Eaters which had escaped earlier that year. Bellatrix Lestrange's face seemed to leap out at him: she leered at him as if she fully remembered seeing him at the Department of Mysteries. Seeing her face again made a surge of anger and grief well up in him, and he felt a sudden urge to tear the newspaper to pieces.

"It's her," Tonks said difficultly. "My _Aunt Bellatrix_."

"The one who killed Sirius," Remus said, beginning to understand what she was getting at – or so he thought.

"Because I was so stupid not to get her first." There was a bitter, self-hating tone in her voice.

"What?" he said, not believing what he just heard.

"You heard me. You know how it went. I was fighting her, I really thought I had her, I was _so close_ – "

"Don't you dare blame yourself," he cut in, sharply. "It is not your fault, do you understand me? It's _not your fault Sirius died_."

"But what if it was?" she asked. "What if I could have stopped her? It wasn't too long before Dumbledore came in, you told me, and I only needed to hold her off a few more minutes…"

"It's not your fault," he repeated. "Would you say it was Dumbledore's fault for coming too late? Kingsley's fault for not jumping in earlier and letting her escape too? My fault for letting Sirius go to the Department of Mysteries in the first place? Or Harry's because he fell for Voldemort's trap. Or blame Snape for alerting us that Harry was gone. It's all these people's fault, and yet nobody is to blame because it was just a stupid, stupid coincidence, the sick way fate works."

It was meant as a comforting embrace, really. She had burst into tears at his words, and he hugged her tightly, allowing her to cry into his shoulder. He patted her on the back, again to comfort her. The way he kissed her forehead was also meant as a comforter, just like – as he sternly told himself – the kiss on her mouth, which she gladly returned. By the time the patting on the back wasn't so much a patting anymore but got a little more daring, and a tongue got involved with the kissing, the whole deal wasn't perhaps comforting as it was snogging, but by the time they had reached that point neither of them cared very much anymore.

* * *

In the following days, they all but forgot they were supposed to be cleaning. Occasionally they would pretty much untangle themselves and announce that this time they would really continue – only to get terribly distracted five minutes later.

Remus kept assuring Tonks that nobody blamed her for Sirius' death, simply because she wasn't to blame for it. It wasn't at all her fault. She deeply wanted to believe it, but needed his reassurance to convince herself that it was true.

They didn't talk much, if at all, about the two of them snogging like mad. It was a subject that they'd much rather do than talk about, and they did it enthusiastically. Remus had never really considered Tonks in 'that way', but he suddenly realised how funny she was, and intelligent, and kind, and pretty – well, depending on what kind of nose she had that day. It felt kind of odd to go from grieving to kissing like this. He had felt really lonely the past few weeks, and Tonks was the only one who seemed to understand. There was an instant connection which was slowly beginning to develop into something deeper, although neither of them was yet aware of it.

Most of the time they were left undisturbed. The rest of the Order had thoughtfully decided to leave them alone to their undoubtedly difficult and sad task, only dropping in occasionally if it was really important. The new Headquarters hadn't yet been decided on: instead, they switched houses ever so often, meeting at the homes of members of the Order throughout the country. Remus and Tonks gambled on Tonks' relation to the Black family in case they were found out; because she was a cousin of Bellatrix, it wasn't entirely trespassing what they did. Or so they told themselves.

Remus also met the Weasley children and Hermione again when one of the meetings had been at the Burrow. They looked as well as they ever did, having recovered from their injuries, but – like pretty much the rest of the Order as well – they looked more serious. The first true loss of the Order had hit them as well, especially since it was somebody they had known so well. Remus hadn't seen Harry, but he was told that the boy probably wouldn't spend as much time with his relatives as he usually did. He would probably come to the Burrow in a few weeks time.

* * *

It was a week since they had begun sorting out Sirus' belongings. Most of the items had been either stored away for keeping or been thrown away. The bed was bare, the closet likewise so, and the only thing left to do was to search through every drawer of the frail, elegant desk Mrs Black had had in her room.

"How likely is it that he's actually used that desk?" Tonks wondered as Remus crouched down to open the drawers.

"Knowing Sirius, not very likely," he said. He pulled the top drawer open and stared down at the stack of papers in it. "On the other hand, Sirius has always been very unpredictable."

She smiled. "Always expect the unexpected."

She kneeled down besides him. He divided the stack of papers in two piles and handed one to her. Most of them were letters, either from Harry or Remus. He put the letters away unopened – he felt that reading them was either too private or not something he wanted to do right now. Tonks followed his example.

The second drawer contained more notes, most of them rather random. Remus was amused to find one sheet covered with small doodles, most of which seemed to depict Snape being the butt of jokes. He put it on the 'to keep' pile.

"Here's a few more letters," Tonks said, handing him the small bundle. "Some of them are from you."

"Thanks." And yes, it was absolutely necessary to thank her with a kiss. Of course, Tonks had to thank him for that kiss by kissing him in return, which he had to thank her for, which she thanked him for, and he was about to thank her back when the door opened and Kingsley Shacklebolt walked in.

"I'm sorry, but I was just wondering – " He noticed the scene in front of him: Remus and Tonks quickly, but just a few seconds too late, breaking apart. " – if I should come back later. Like, much later. And if we could never mention this again. Ever." He backed out of the room and shut the door.

"Oh no." Tonks covered her face with her hands, suddenly overcome with a fit of the giggles. "That was pretty much the last person I wanted to walk in."

"Oh, so you actually _wanted_ someone to walk in?" Remus asked her, teasing. She whacked him playfully for that comment.

There was a polite knocking on the door. "Ah, can I come in?" Kingsley asked.

"Yes, of course." Remus got to his feet, quickly dusting off his clothes. "What is it?"

Kingsley looked slightly embarrassed, but not as much as Tonks did. After all, Kingsley was her colleague, and a much respected Auror. Thankfully, all three did an admirable job of pretending absolutely nothing unusual had occurred.

"There's an Order meeting tomorrow," Kingsley said. "At Hestia Jones' house. I got the address, here." He handed Remus a slip of parchment.

"Thanks," Remus said. Tonks bit her index finger at this comment but said nothing. "Was that everything?"

"No, it wasn't even the main message." Kingsley looked around the room. "You did a fine job here."

"Yeah, we can be proud. It was a mess, but we managed to clear out the most of it."

"Good, good. You see," Kingsley continued, "I was wondering if you hadn't found anything about what's going to happen to the house yet."

"Sadly, no. How so?"

"I've been looking into the legal consequences. The house is Bellatrix Lestrange's, unless there's a will somewhere, or even just a written promise that the house is passing onto someone else. It needs to be written, that is all, the rest is not really important."

"We haven't found anything," Tonks said. "Loads of papers, but most of them were just meaningless, or not about the house at all."

"The thing is," Kingsley went on, "that I think there must be some kind of will somewhere. I think – I'm not sure, but it's my guess – that if the house had been Bellatrix', the rest of the Order wouldn't be able to get in unless she gave permission. And I could get in just fine five minutes ago."

"That's a good point," Remus said pensively. "A very good point actually."

"Maybe Sirius promised Harry somewhere in a letter that he could get the house," Tonks suggested.

"Then we should ask Harry about it," Kingsley said. "But I think it unlikely, because surely Harry would have mentioned something of the sort?"

"Yes, true." They fell into a pensive silence for a moment, which was broken by Kingsley.

"Well, keep an eye out for it," he said. "I must be off again. No, wait, before I go, one last thing."

"What's that?"

"It's been three weeks since Sirius died," Kingsley began, as if they really needed reminding. "The Ministry of Magic knows every detail of what happened at the Department of Mysteries, except for one thing: that Sirius was there. Is it okay with you if I tell them he was there, that he was innocent and how he died?"

Both Kingsley and Tonks looked instinctively to Remus to answer this request. It didn't take him long to think about it: "yes, of course. Tell the truth, please. It doesn't do that the world still thinks he's an escaped prisoner."

Kingsley nodded. "Thank you. I think the Ministry won't be glad that they failed at that too, that they had imprisoned an innocent man, but at least it will clear his name."

"Indeed."

Kingsley took his leave and Remus and Tonks were alone again.

"Too late," Tonks said, "but about time."

"Yes," Remus agreed. He kneeled down at the two piles of parchment again. "I wonder if Kingsley is right, that there is some sort of will in here."

Tonks plopped down next to him. "You know, I doubt it. We've been through everything, we looked through every last scrap of parchment, and there was nothing, _nothing whatsoever_ about the house."

"Well, you can at least check if you're certain of that," Remus said, handing her another stack of parchment. "I'll only say that until we've really reached the last scrap of parchment."

It was not even ten minutes later when Remus, having just opened the third and last drawer, turned triumphantly to Tonks. "Strange thing," he said, smiling, "but if you're looking for something, it's always in the last place you look."

"Did you find it?" she asked. Instead of answering her, he handed her an envelope, sealed with wax and with just one single line on it.

_Not to be opened before I die. _

* * *

**Author's Note.**

Laadeedah. A little unsatisfactory, in my opinion - but first chapters almost always are. It's kind of hard to get the feel of the characters again after having left them for such a long time - especially since the first scene takes place a day after the last scene in _Order of the Phoenix_. Hmm... But I reckon that I'll get 'the feel' back at least before the third chapter.

And I think I need to reread HBP again for the tiny little details. Not that that's bad or anything...


	2. The Spy

**Pfew! Finally a new chapter! I'm sorry it took such a long while - I constantly had things coming between it. I moved out of my parents' house, so I had to adjust to my new house. And school started again too, so I had to readjust to that _too_. But it's finally here! **

**The ending's a bit... deux ex machina, but it'll have to work that way. Also, I was kind of having trouble getting into Remus' head since I was constantly thinking that he was being incredibly stupid - and that was his _canon_ behaviour. Ahh well, guess we can't expect him to have his brains turned on all the time...**

**For those interested: since a few weeks, I have a LifeJournal. Most of my posts are just ramblings about random stuff, but sometimes it's actually related to my writing. So if you want a peak behind the scenes so to speak, there's a link in my profile here.**

**Enjoy the chapter!**

**

* * *

June 1996.**

"_Dumbledore wanted a spy and there I was… ready-made."_

* * *

"Please, come in, but quickly." Hestia Jones held the door open just enough for Remus and Tonks to slip inside. After one anxious look into the foggy street, she closed it again, wishing she could shut out the rest of the world, especially the darker parts of it, just as easily as she just shut the door.

Remus and Tonks stood waiting patiently for directions, close together with the same serious, calm expression on their faces.

"You can hang your cloaks there," Hestia pointed, "the meeting's in the living room, through that door. And, in case you need it, the bathroom's right here." She hoped she'd covered everything they wanted to know.

Remus nodded. "Thank you," he said quietly. Then, without taking off their cloaks, he and Tonks set off for the living room.

Hestia sighed. Hosting a meeting for the Order of the Phoenix wasn't easy, and the way Remus and Tonks were acting wasn't really helping. Remus had been solitary and slightly aloof anyway – not that she wanted to be his next best friend, but she barely knew him. And Tonks seemed to have been taking a leaf from his book since the horrible happenings at the Ministry of Magic. She seemed more distant now and more serious, although bursts of her quirky sense of humour still frequently occurred. Still, she had changed.

And Hestia was unsure how to react, how to treat them. It was hard to decide how to act around people who were mourning a lost friend or relative, even if that person had died under normal circumstances. The problem was that Sirius Black had died under circumstances that were anything but normal. Even though she had heard every detail of what happened that night, Hestia still thought it hard to grasp all at once. She could barely picture what had happened – she was barely thirty, had led a fairly uneventful life, she had no experience with war. Sure, she had done some duelling at Hogwarts, but that did not compare at all to a full-on battle for ones life. And here were two people who had experienced just that and got through it. Remus had even been in the first Order of the Phoenix, laying his life on the line. He had made bitter sacrifices for the cause of good.

And just how do you treat a hero?

Hestia didn't know. She therefore tried to act as normally as she could, taking comfort in the fact that those she admired probably weren't even aware that she did. After all, besides being heroic, Remus was also amazingly humble.

She sighed again, slightly irritated this time. If only the people she admired weren't so damn admirable and perfect, it would make it easier to see them more as normal people.

The bell rang again. She opened the door and saw Dedalus Diggle, his purple top hat moist because of the fog.

"Please, come in," she said, "but quickly."

* * *

Most members of the Order were already there when Remus and Tonks walked into the living room. There was a soft murmur which only briefly stopped when the newcomers were noticed; it continued after they were recognized.

They sat down next to Kingsley Shacklebolt, who stopped his study of Hestia's collection of porcelain figurines to greet them.

"Good evening," he said, sounding graver than he had meant it because of his deep voice.

"A bit too foggy to be good," Remus said, "but I appreciate the sentiment."

"Whotcher," came Tonks cheerfully.

"Pretty good, actually," Kingsley said. "Continually pestered by journalists, of course, and glared at by Scrimgeour, but I'll live through that."

After Kingsley had asked permission to tell the truth about what had happened to Sirius, he had wasted no time and had gone to the Ministry to tell Rufus Scrimgeour, the Head of the Auror Office, to finally confess that he had been fooling his superiors for more than a year. Scrimgeour hadn't been happy; Cornelius Fudge hadn't been happy _at all_. The journalists of the _Daily Prophets _had jumped on this like a pack of dogs on a pile of fresh meat, happy with another opportunity of pointing out what a bad job the Ministry of Magic and the Minister were doing running the country. Not only had they lied about the return of Voldemort, they'd also put an innocent man behind the bars of Azkaban for twelve years. Even though the news would probably soon get lost in the sea of reports of murders and sightings of Death Eaters which was bound to get in, it was another blow that would count in the end. An end which might come sooner for Fudge than he'd like.

"He's getting criticism from everyone," Kingsley explained to Remus. "All of a sudden, people are realising that in the past few years, when Dumbledore was warning them for You-Know-Who's return, Fudge was the one who tried to hush it all up. Theory has it that it was even one of the reasons why he was so glad to have the Quidditch World Cup here, and why he wanted to have another Triwizard Tournament again. Surely a country which was suspecting the return of a dark wizard wouldn't host two such important events."

"To keep up the appearance of a thriving, happy country," Remus said.

"Exactly. Of course, now the very same dark wizard who wasn't supposed to be alive showed up in the Ministry itself, the whole cover is blown and Fudge is in trouble. More and more people are calling for a leader, one who can actually rule a country and knows what to do in a time of war. Actually, I'm not giving Fudge more than a week."

It was a sign of the changed times that Remus thought that Kingsley was probably even being optimistic now – Fudge could have been sacked that very moment they were talking about him.

"Who do you think will be the new Minister?" he asked.

"Besides Dumbledore?" Kingsley said, giving a small smile. "At least, everybody'll want Dumbledore, but he'll never do it. I think somebody with experience in stressed times will be likely to get the new job, so maybe an Auror, and someone who's fought in the first war as well. Moody would have been good had he not been so paranoid – he's considered too much of a lunatic right now by the public. _I _will never be considered of course, so stop looking at me like that – "

"Minister Shacklebolt doesn't sound too bad," Tonks grinned.

"I lied to everybody in sight about Sirius – who can say I won't lie again?" Kingsley pointed out. "Besides, Scrimgeour has said that he's already got a new mission for me, so in fact it was only for the better that Sirius turned out to be dead. From his viewpoint of course."

"Of course," Remus said coolly.

"So one of the senior Aurors might get the job." Kingsley continued. "Maybe even Scrimgeour himself. In his days, he's captured enough Death Eaters to become somewhat of a war hero, his reputation is clean and after all those years of being Head of the Auror Head Quarters, he's shown that he can run a small army."

"So Scrimgeour for Minister," Tonks said. "I think he'd be good. Harsh maybe, but good. I feel a bit sorry for Fudge though."

"I think Fudge will secretly be relieved that he won't have to rule the country in times as these," Remus replied. "Imagine if the Ministry messed it up, which certainly will happen. He'd be as good as dead. No, it's easier to let someone else carry the burden."

"Well put," Kingsley said. "Fudge likes the fame of being the Minister, but he doesn't like the responsibility that comes with it. He's not a war leader."

"Exactly."

By now, almost every member of the Order had arrived, and the living room had got quite full. There were only a handful of people missing; most of them because they had other work to do that couldn't wait. Dumbledore also hadn't arrived yet, but it happened more often now that he arrived last and left first. Nobody was sure what he was doing or where he went.

"I hope we can talk to Dumbledore before the meeting starts," Remus said to Tonks.

"Why?" Kingsley asked.

"We found the will," Tonks said simply, the mere thought of keeping it a secret not coming up in her mind. "Yesterday, not even half an hour after you asked for it."

"Fantastic!" Kingsley said. "What does it say?"

"Well, we actually want to tell Dumbledore first, because it does specify what should happen to Grimmauld Place – but there's a catch," Remus explained.

"What kind of a catch?"

"A catch that probably won't catch us – pardon the bad pun – but I think Dumbledore should hear of it first anyway. He's the head of the Order after all."

"Alright, alright." Kingsley raised his hands in mock protest. "Then don't satisfy my curiosity."

Tonks laughed. "Don't worry. We'll tell you after we've told Dumbledore."

"We'll probably tell the entire Order after we've told him," Remus said, getting up. "C'mon, he's here."

Sure enough, Severus Snape had just walked in, and he was now holding the door open for the Headmaster. A relieved murmur went through the room – it was always reassuring to see Dumbledore. Dumbledore was wrapped in a dark blue travelling cloak, his white beard glistening with moist. He looked tired, and his eyes didn't twinkle as much as they used to. Still, he smiled warmly when he saw Remus approach.

"Good evening," he said. Snape didn't greet, but merely glared. He was still holding the door open, apparently reckoning that it was a bit rude to close it with the Headmaster still in the door opening.

"Good evening, Sir," Remus said, as always instinctively falling back to the polite way of addressing he had used as a schoolboy. "Could Tonks and I have a word with you before the meeting begins? It's important."

"Of course," Dumbledore replied. "We can talk in the kitchen."

Snape glowered as though Remus was stealing Dumbledore away from him, but he was singularly ignored and was thus left to grit his teeth. As he was still holding the door open, he was now forced to suffer Remus walk past to enjoy a conversation with Dumbledore to which Snape was not invited. It gave Remus an odd, almost Sirius-like satisfaction to see the Potions Master frustrated like this. He immediately berated himself for it, first of all for enjoying someone else's frustration and secondly because surely there wasn't really a reason for Snape to be frustrated, just because he was excluded from a conversation. And even if there was, the man was looking frustrated so often it was hard to tell what exactly he was being frustrated about this time.

Remus suddenly noticed that Dumbledore and Tonks, completely oblivious to his musings, had already walked on into the kitchen. He quickly followed them.

Like Hestia Jones' living room, her kitchen was tiny and cosy. Even though there wasn't much room, everything was neatly ordered and clean. She had even managed to put little potted plants in the windowsill.

Dumbledore had sat down on one of the chairs around the circular kitchen table and was adjusting his cloak so that it fell neatly over his knees and his feet. Remus only half-consciously registered that the Headmaster looked tired and seemed to be having some trouble with this simple task. He paid a little more attention.

With a nasty shock, he noticed that Dumbledore right hand looked burned, withered and dead.

"Sir?" he said abruptly, without thinking. "Are you alright?"

Dumbledore looked up. "Excuse me? Oh. Yes, of course. Thriving." Casually, with a small gesture that would normally not have drawn too much attention to the movement, he shook his right sleeve so that it covered his hand. "Now, what did you two want to tell me?"

Remus gave Tonks a sideway glance, which she returned a little nervously. Dumbledore's hand hadn't escaped her notice either, and to neither of them it looked "thriving". However, Remus firmly told himself that if Dumbledore had decided they didn't need to know what had happened, then they didn't need to know. Apparently it was really none of their business what the Headmaster had done to his hand, and it was not their place to push the subject.

So instead he turned his mind to the question. A really immature part of him that he didn't know even existed wanted to blurt out private things about him and Tonks which Dumbledore _really_ didn't need to know (_must've been the 'you two' thing_) but he kept that part in check and said: "it's about number twelve, Grimmauld Place. You see, we've been sorting through Sirius' private papers and… things, and – "

"You found a will?" Dumbledore finished the sentence, sitting up a little straighter. He looked more interested than Remus had seen him in weeks.

"Yes," he said. He took the will from his pocket and handed it to Dumbledore. "We've already opened and read it, but we thought you should read it too before we told the rest of the Order."

Dumbledore's eyes flashed over the few lines written down by Sirius. As far as a will went, it was extremely short and straight-forward. Almost disappointingly so, in fact – while he hadn't expected or even hoped for huge sums of money, Remus had secretly hoped that he would somehow have been remembered. Even if it was just 'to Remus Lupin: a slap up the head for all those times he told me to go and read a book'. Instead, Sirius had left everything to Harry: his fortune and his house. There were no other people mentioned in the will.

"So," Dumbledore said when he had finished reading. "Everything goes to Harry."

"Yes," Remus agreed. "I suppose that means Harry is now officially the legal owner of number twelve, Grimmauld Place?"

"I am almost certain he is," Dumbledore said. "Unless there is some kind of extra law of which neither Sirius nor I were or are previously aware. Since that seems unlikely, I'd say Harry now owns a house."

"Do you think he intends to live in it?" Tonks asked both Remus and Dumbledore.

"I wouldn't think so," Remus said. "Too… too many bad memories. I also have a feeling that Sirius left Harry everything because it was the only person he could think of at that moment. Just as long as the house didn't go to a relative of his." Secretly, though, Remus doubted if it had been such a conscious decision on Sirius' part – Harry being the only person mentioned in the will seemed to be more a sign of Sirius' near-obsession with his Godson than of a careful examination of who would be the best suited to inherit a house.

"So there won't be a problem of Harry agreeing to let us use it again as a Head Quarters, right?" Tonks continued the conversation.

"Probably not," Dumbledore agreed. "It is something I will suggest to him when I meet him."

"You're going to see Harry?" Remus asked, slightly surprised. There did not seem to be any need – they had heard regularly from the boy, and although he did not exactly seem to be doing great, he wasn't in grave danger either.

"Yes. There is something I need to discuss with him," Dumbledore said simply. Again, no reason or explanation was given, and Remus simply had to trust that Dumbledore knew what he was doing. And had he really had a reason to doubt the Headmaster before?

Dumbledore had got to his feet. "Now, was that everything?" he asked, not unkindly. "There's a meeting waiting for us."

"Yes Sir," Remus said. "That was all."

"Good," Dumbledore said briskly. He courteously stepped back to let Tonks pass. Then, when she was out of the kitchen, he said to Remus, casually as if inquiring after the weather: "after the meeting, could I have a word with you? There is something important I want to discuss with you. I want to ask you a favour, one might say."

"Yes, of course," Remus said, slightly taken aback. "Certainly."

Dumbledore nodded contently, then beckoned for Remus to get a move on toward the living room. Remus did as he was told, meanwhile wondering what the Headmaster could want to ask him that Tonks wasn't allowed to hear.

The living room was filled with people when they returned, and the soft murmur quickly died down as Dumbledore entered and closed the door behind him. Remus quietly walked over to his chair and sat down. Kingsley shot him and Tonks a curious glance, but Remus gestured that they'd explain everything later.

"Good evening," Dumbledore began. "Welcome. We are slightly crowded, but it looks like we'll manage. Now, our first order of business…"

What followed was a fairly business-as-usual meeting. People reported on what they had been doing. Depressingly, reports on people being wounded or even killed were also getting more and more common. A chilled silence fell over the room as Elphias Doge told them in short, detached sentences how Emmeline Vance had been murdered the night before. Both Emmeline and Elphias had been in the first Order, and her death pained the other members even more when they saw how the elder wizard was grieved by it.

Remus couldn't look at him. He had known Emmeline fairly well himself, had even duelled alongside her in the first war. Knowing her, she'd put up a fight before she was killed. It was a considerable loss to the Order.

So instead, Remus looked across the room, at the people around him. Most of them looked shocked; some, like Molly Weasley, looked close to tears. Those who had experienced something like this before, such as members of the first Order, didn't really show any emotions except a pale complexion and a determined look on their faces. The only exceptions were Dumbledore and Snape.

Dumbledore looked distracted, as if his mind was anywhere except at the meeting. Remus had noticed before that Dumbledore's mind seemed to go to wander off every time the attention was not on him. Before, he had assumed it was because he had strategies to plan and new orders to work out, but now, for the first time, he wondered if Dumbledore's thoughts were even remotely related to the Order of the Phoenix.

Snape, on the other hand, looked as if he was struggling to hide his amusement.

Remus did a double-take when he saw this, not believing his eyes. Being a master at concealing his feelings, Snape's face was perfectly emotionless, but Remus was sure he had seen the corner's of Snape's mouth twitch slightly. It looked as if he was about to smirk but only just keeping himself in check. It was unsettling. Had Remus been more like Sirius, he'd have spoken up without thinking and accused Snape of enjoying the death of someone. Being Remus, he was left with the disturbing feeling that something was wrong but he couldn't proof it. He couldn't even really say what it was.

Elphias Doge sat down abruptly after he finished his report, clearly exhausted and not wanting to say anything else. Dumbledore seemed to snap out of his thoughts exactly in time, thanked Elphias for his report, then continued the meeting. Thankfully, the rest of the reports weren't as bad – relatively spoken. Kingsley gave a brief update on what had happened since he'd told the Ministry about Sirius' death and that there was going to be an inquiry. This new was met with a relative indifference: the news of Emmeline Vance's death still occupied everyone's mind.

Shortly after that, Dumbledore closed the meeting. Soon, most members of the Order had left, quietly, worrying about what was going to happen next.

"So, what was the big news?" Kingsley asked. He, Remus and Tonks were the only ones left in the living room. They had got to his feet, and Kingsley was now kind of looming over Remus, which was a bit unnerving.

"We found the will," Tonks said, "and it said that Harry inherited everything."

"Well, yeah," said Remus. "It's really as simple as that."

"So the house too?" Kingsley asked, just to be sure.

"Everything," Remus confirmed. "So yeah, the house too."

"Nice. Of course, Harry will let us use it as a Head Quarters."

"I expect so. Dumbledore wants to talk it over with him though, before making a final decision. At least, I think that's what he wants… He's not really clear on that."

"When _is_ Dumbledore clear on anything?" Tonks rightly said.

"Quite right," Remus smiled. "Speaking of Dumbledore, there was something he wanted to ask me, so excuse me."

"Want me to wait for you?" Tonks asked.

"It's not absolutely necessary," Remus said carefully.

"I'll wait." She smiled in a way that told him not to argue it.

All the time, Kingsley had done an admirable job of pretending that he had listened in on a perfectly normal conversation between two people in an illegal organisation. Remus said goodbye to him, relieving him of the situation, then went to look for Dumbledore.

Dumbledore was sitting in the kitchen, not flanked by Snape for a change. The Headmaster was holding a cup of tea in his left hand and was swirling the liquid in tune with the simple, repetitive tune he was humming. Again, he seemed lost in thoughts.

"Sir?" Remus asked politely. Dumbledore looked up and smiled.

"Ah, yes. Please, come in."

Remus did so. "Won't Hestia protest that we're invading her house like this?"

"We won't be long," Dumbledore promised. "It's a fairly straight-forward request I have." Remus nodded for him to say it, and Dumbledore wasted no time.

"Have you ever heard of Fenrir Greyback?"

Remus tensed. "Is there a witch of wizard who hasn't?" Greyback's name carried extra weight for werewolves: he was the most savage werewolf known, and he put a lot of effort in keeping that reputation.

"Indeed." Dumbledore carefully put his teacup back on the kitchen table. "I hadn't doubted you'd know him. Now, this is the matter: information has reached me that Greyback wants to join Voldemort, probably for his own gain, but that is not sure. I need someone to infiltrate his group, his pack as it is so charmingly called, and spy on him."

"In other words, me."

"Yes."

Remus thought this over. For all he knew, Greyback and his kin were outcasts, living on the margins of society. Most of them had refused the meagre help the Ministry had offered them, instead trying to care for themselves. Apart from not knowing exactly where he could find them, seeing as how they usually hid from the ordinary world, he wasn't sure he even wanted to live with those werewolves. Not because he was a snob and liked his comfort and his books (he did, but he supposed he could manage without them – for a while anyway) but he was afraid he and the other werewolves weren't going to agree. He _had_ accepted the Ministry's money, which would make them a traitor in Greyback's eyes.

On the other hand, he could definitely see why Dumbledore had asked him as a spy. Being a werewolf, he would fit right in with the other werewolves in Greyback's group. Nobody would suspect anything. Also, because he didn't have a job or anything else to occupy him, he could devote all his time to his work as a spy. And he had to admit, he was more sociable than Snape while at the same time used to keeping a secret (a habit that had been forced on him). Inconspicuously working himself into a group wouldn't be too much trouble – the problem was staying there. And if Dumbledore asked it of him…

"Well?" Dumbledore asked.

Remus hesitated another moment before he said: "of course. I'll do it. When do you want me to begin?"

"As soon as possible," Dumbledore said, getting to his feet. "There's no time to lose."

Remus nodded. "I understand."

Dumbledore smiled, bade Remus a good day and left. Remus bit his lip. He was well aware that it was necessary work: the information he would be able to gather might save innocent lives. And he wasn't in the Order of the Phoenix for nothing: when he joined, he knew he would have to do thing he'd rather not do. He had seen people die; others had disappeared and had never been found. Only a few weeks ago, he had duelled with several Death Eaters and lived through it. He knew the risks, and what he had gotten himself into. And there was the fact that he felt some kind of obligation to Dumbledore: if the Headmaster said he had to do it, he had to. Dumbledore was privy to much more information than Remus; he would have to trust in him.

He would have to do this. He would have to leave normal society, go undercover, cut himself off from any kind of contact. Any kind. With a sinking feeling, he realised the impact of this: he could go months without seeing his friends. He wouldn't be able to attend every Order-meeting. Surprise visits to his family were out of the question: too dangerous.

He wouldn't be able to see Tonks anymore.

The moment he realised this, he began to explain it away rationally. It was a defence mechanism: if he didn't like something, he would immediately tell himself why it was inevitable. It would be too dangerous, he reasoned. He couldn't keep seeing Tonks. A short fling was okay, but nothing serious. Besides, he was too old – the same age as Sirius, and Sirius had mentioned babysitting Tonks once. He would have to break it off.

He suddenly realised that he was still standing in Hestia Jones' kitchen. He mentally shook himself and walked out. Hestia was cleaning out the living room, apparently glad everybody was gone. Remus avoided her: he didn't feel up to talking to her. Instead, he quietly walked to the front door and went outside.

Tonks stood waiting on the pavement, shivering in the cold, her black hair drooping with moist from the fog. She looked up at him expectantly.

"And?"

Remus shook his head: he didn't want to talk right now. He had no idea how to say what he had to say: instead, he put his arms around her and hugged her tightly, enjoying the feel of her for as long as he could. He buried his nose in her hair, smelling her, trying to fix that smell in his mind.

Tonks didn't know what was troubling him, but she could feel something was wrong. She knew he wouldn't say anything if he didn't want to: she could only hold him and give him her warmth.

He was already missing her.

* * *

After more than three weeks of Voldemort and his followers running rampant, security at the Ministry had been increased so much that it now took about thirty minutes just to get in for a visit. Remus had had to stand in line, hand over his wand, then fill out a detailed questionnaire about who he was and what he was going to do at the Ministry and why he thought that was so important anyway. After that, a watch wizard took over and prodded him everywhere to see if he wasn't smuggling anything dangerous inside. Five security spells were used to double-check everything, then his wand was given back after the watch wizards had grudgingly admitted that maybe this time he wasn't up to anything. After that, he was finally allowed to walk on to the golden-grilled elevators.

No wonder most witches and wizards wanted to stay home nowadays.

And judging by the articles in the _Daily Prophet_, security was going to be even tighter. The thing the Ministry was now most concerned with was preventing identity theft: how do you know that the person you're looking at is really that person, and not some impersonator? Development of an identity card of passport that couldn't be forged had begun, but the problem was that with magic, pretty much anything could be copied. In their desperation, the Ministry had even looked into Muggle ways of security. Perhaps something the Muggles called a 'chip', something inserted in the body? Or something different altogether?

The Ministry's attempts had sounded so clueless that that, too, had attracted ridicule from the general public, even though they were trying their best. Remus had heard lots of crude jokes about new security measures, and one journalist, who had a weekly satirical column in the _Daily Prophet_, had suggested 'doing a cow' and just earmarking everybody. Needless to say that the Ministry hadn't followed that advice.

_There's one tiny benefit of this whole ordeal,_ Remus thought. _At least the elevators aren't so crowded anymore_.

Indeed, there was just him and another witch and wizard in the elevator. As usual, they didn't speak or even look at one another, but this was more than the usual elevator-behaviour: everybody at the Ministry was much too stressed for small-talk.

He got off on the fourth floor and walked directly to the office of the Werewolf Capture Unit. For once, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was delightfully quiet. In times of war, human lives were deemed more important than animal lives. Knocking three times on the door of the Capture Unit's office, he didn't wait for a reply but walked in directly.

As he had hoped (and hadn't hoped), Romulus was here. His younger brother looked up, surprised.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Could ask the same of you," Remus said.

"I'm doing the highly important job of being bored out of my skull," Romulus admitted. "Surely you're not here to do the same?"

"Actually, no. I need your help."

"Sure. Shoot."

Remus sat down opposite his brother. He feared this was going to be a long and hard conversation. "Do you know where Fenrir Greyback is?"

Romulus laughed mirthlessly. "Remus, if we knew, don't you think we would've caught him then locked him up in Azkaban? I _wish_ I knew where he was."

"Oh." Of course, Remus now realised that it had been a bit too optimistic of him to assume the Capture Unit knew where Greyback was.

"Why?" Romulus asked curiously.

"I need to know where he is."

"Why?"

"Dumbledore asked me."

"Why?"

Remus shot his brother an annoyed glare. "You're two, aren't you?"

"No," Romulus pointed out, "this is normal behaviour once you've known you for more than a year. Communicate, Remus. Why does Dumbledore of all people want to know where Greyback is?"

"Because…" Remus begun, then stopped. He sighed. "Because. He asked me something, to do."

"Which was..?"

Remus sighed again and decided to spit it all out at once. "He asked me to infiltrate Greyback's group of werewolves and spy on him, since he'd heard that Greyback had plans to join the Death Eaters."

There was silence for a few moments. Then Romulus coolly said: "he wants you to spy on Greyback."

"Yes."

"Fenrir Greyback."

"Yes."

Romulus narrowed his eyes. "Does he _know_ who Greyback is? Do you know?"

"Only the most dangerous werewolf known since the past, oh, few decades." Remus tried to sort-of casually laugh it away, but Romulus wasn't amused.

"Yeah," he said fiercely. "Only the most dangerous werewolf, who likes little children in the dangerous sense of the word, who isn't above eating his victims and who consciously plans his little outings. And you're going to live with that freak?"

"I have to," Remus said.

Romulus gave a horrible, hollow laugh. "Oh great," he said. "Brilliant. And I suppose you also _have to _join him in, ah, his monthly activities?"

"I hope not," Remus admitted. "I'll try not to."

"You'll _try_ not to," Romulus said sarcastically. "Well, that makes everything okay then, doesn't it?"

"Listen – " Remus tried to argue. Romulus interrupted him.

"I don't care!" he yelled. "Fuck it, Remus, you're joining up with a _murderer_. How can you expect _not_ to get caught in what he does? This is one of the most insane ideas Dumbledore has ever had, and I frankly can't believe he's asking this of you!"

"Look," Remus said sharply. "It's not as if I'm happy doing this, but I'm the most obvious choice. I'm a werewolf myself, you know that, so I won't attract any attention. I can say that I tried to live a normal life but that it didn't work out. I don't even think Greyback will suspect anything."

"Yeah right," was Romulus' sarcastic reply.

"No, honestly. What importance am I going to have? Just this new guy who realised a normal life's not in it for him. He probably won't even notice me."

"You are so bloody dense sometimes," Romulus said irritably. "Of course he's going to notice you, _because_ you are a new guy. Have you two even thought about the risks? Remus, this could get you killed."

"I know."

Romulus snorted. "Yeah."

A tense silence followed. Romulus looked genuinely angry, and frankly, Remus couldn't blame him. He had hoped to at least get some information on Greyback's or his followers' whereabouts, so he knew where to start looking for them, but he now realised he'd been dreadfully optimistic. And dreadfully stupid, too.

"So…" he said carefully. "You're not going to help me?"

"Of course not, idiot," Romulus said, glaring at him.

Remus sighed. "Listen," he said, "could you at least tell Mum and Dad – "

"No!" Romulus said. "Are you completely stupid? I'm not telling them anything. I'm not telling anybody anything, I'm not going to ask you anything either – I don't want anything to do with this sorry mess. Just shut up about it already and kindly keep that creep Greyback _away from my family_."

"I'm completely on my own, then," Remus said coolly.

"Glad you caught on so quickly."

"Good. Fine. Thanks but no thanks then, I suppose." Remus got to his feet. "I'll work this out for myself then."

"Enjoy yourself."

"Yeah, whatever."

Remus was about to walk out of the door when it opened and Christoph, one of Romulus' colleagues, walked in. The elderly wizard gave a surprised smile when he saw Remus, but frowned when he noticed the tense atmosphere.

"Anything wrong?" he asked.

"No, nothing," Remus lied.

"Except that this idiot wants to know where he can find Fenrir Greyback," came Romulus angrily. Remus turned around, surprised – _so much for 'not telling anybody anything'_. Romulus glared at him, too angry still to keep quiet.

"Why?" was of course Christoph's first question.

"No particular reason," Remus further tried to avoid the matter.

"Trust me, you really don't want to know," interrupted Romulus again.

"You know, for someone who doesn't want anything to do with this, you're being awfully talkative," Remus snapped.

"That's because I find the idea of ridiculing you too tempting to resist," Romulus bit back.

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Christoph cut in. "Let's not have an argument now." The two brothers did shut up, but they shot angry glares at one another which said enough.

"Now," Christoph went on, "I don't know why you want to see Greyback, and if it were up to me I'd really talk you out of it – "

"No need, Romulus already tried that," Remus said coolly.

"I suspected as much. I guess it's not really my business, but have you considered finding one of Greyback's 'pack'?"

"Well, yeah, except that I don't know where to find them."

"Because I think working through that way is a lot easier. It's a shameful thing to admit, but we have never captured Greyback. He moves so frequently and so quickly, we only arrive at the places where he's attacked people when he has already gone."

"Well, okay," Remus said. "Where can I find the other werewolves, then?"

"Don't look at me," Romulus said, even though nobody was looking at him. "I'm not helping."

"No, indeed, you're not," Remus said sarcastically.

Christoph ignored the exchange. "If you really want to find Greyback, you might want to try and talk to this one werewolf I know. He hasn't said anything to us, he's just laughing and mocking us, but maybe you're having better luck."

"And of course you also want me to tell you what I found out."

"A few pointers wouldn't hurt," Christoph said modestly.

"Fine. A few pointers I can do." Remus wanted to get this over and done with. "Now, where can I find this person?"

"In Azkaban," Christoph said.

Remus' eyes widened. "Why?"

"Murdered and ate someone for the second time," Christoph said casually, as if this was a normal occurrence. "This time we caught him. He was supposed to get the Dementor's kiss, but… you know. Anyway, he's one of Greyback's children, as they perversely call themselves. He's bound to know where Greyback is."

"Well, there's only one thing left to do then, isn't there?" Remus gave Romulus a defiant look. His brother looked sceptically back.

"I'll have to go to Azkaban."


	3. Azkaban

**Apologies for the incredible late-ness of this chapter. School, real-life and all that stuff intervered. Hopefully I'll have made up for it when I say it's a nice, long chapter! **

**I really don't have anything interesting to say about it, except"enjoy!" **

* * *

**June 1996.**

"_Azkaban is set on a tiny island, way out to sea, but they don't need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they're all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks."

* * *

_

Fudge had had it coming.

He had known it, too. After the denial of Voldemort's return, Sirius Black turning out to have been imprisoned for twelve years despite being innocent, weeks of attacks by Death Eaters on innocent people and the Ministry's inadequate reaction to those attacks and, as a final straw, the murder of Amelia Bones, member of the Wizengamot, and the brutal killing of Emmeline Vance near the office of the Muggle Prime Minister, the criticism on the way the Ministry of Magic ran the country had only increased. More and more people had been demanding that Fudge step down from his place as the Minister to, as the _Daily Prophet _had put it, 'finally get someone competent on that chair'. And if he didn't step down willingly, they'd _make_ him resign.

So what choice had he had?

He had been willing to step down himself – the ground was getting too hot under his feet anyway – but in the end they hadn't even granted him that dignity. It had been a downright coup: one evening, as Fudge was trying to figure out how to respond to the last attack of Death Eaters (they had demolished a bridge in response to Fudge's refusal to stand aside) the Heads of the different Departments had walked in, and, without even so much as a polite greeting, had announced that they had lost all confidence in Fudge's leadership and that the Minister had, by unanimous vote of the Heads and the Wizengamot, been sacked. They had even had his successor at the ready: Rufus Scrimgeour, Head of the Auror Office. The only thing that Fudge had left to do was to clean out his office. Trying to maintain some shred of his dignity, he has asked to at least be allowed to remain as a Senior Advisor. The Heads had at least allowed that, although, Fudge had thought pessimistically, it was to be seen how much authority he would really have. He would have to get used to no longer having the most power in the Ministry.

And so Fudge stepped down, Scrimgeour got the top job, and everything remained as bad as it was.

* * *

Normally, sea-side towns in the United Kingdom are quite pleasant places to spend a summer day. Granted, usually they are too small to have anything real exciting to do, but the quietness has something picturesque. Besides, most tourists are only there for the sea and the beach – the number of people visiting can be scarily accurately predicted by looking at the weather.

The unusually fog in the summer of 1996 killed what had seemed to be a promising season.

It had also, it seemed, killed any cheer the inhabitants of the tiny town cramped on a rocky shore might have had. At least, Remus guessed it had: there was nobody in sight. The fish-and-chips vendor had his vending cart boarded up, and as he Apparated on the cobbles of the harbour, the only creatures Remus startled with his sudden appearance were a few seagulls moodily picking at some tiny fish. The fog covered everything with a thin layer of moist.

"No wonder there aren't any tourists," he said. "This is the most depressing town I've ever seen."

"It would be," Romulus, having just Apparated next to his brother said. He handed his brother one of the two brooms he was holding. "It's the town closest to Azkaban."

"Charming thought," Remus said, looking in the direction he guessed Azkaban was – he could only see a vast wall of fog.

"Quite." Romulus gave an exaggerated sigh, mounted his broom and said: "alright, let's get operation 'oh Merlin I can't believe you're so stupid' over and done with." He tapped the brass compass on his broom. "We need to head north-east for a mile or two, then sharply north. I hope we can see it in all this fog."

"We'll have to risk ending up in Sweden," Remus tried to lighten the atmosphere.

"At least there aren't mad wizards bent on ruling the world running around there – yet," Romulus muttered. "Must be nice."

"Emigrate, get one of those charming little houses near a fjord and make sure you get yourself a sauna. Invite me."

"A sauna is nothing more than a load of fog, except warm. I can get that in England too. Besides, fjords are in Norway."

"Close enough."

Romulus shot Remus a thoroughly annoyed look, so Remus thought it wiser to remain silent and mount his broom. The two brothers kicked off and flew into the fog.

Within a minute, Remus was soaked. They stayed low, within sight of the sea so that they at least had a reassurance that there was a world outside the grey mist around them, even if that world was cold and grey-greenish and wet. Romulus, having the compass and knowing which way they should go, flew slightly before Remus. He had his wand lit so Remus knew where he was. Remus concentrated on that little light as if nothing else mattered.

Romulus hadn't really wanted to come – and he hadn't really been able to stay away. He still thought Remus an utter, utter idiot for carrying on with his plan (and, probably, rightfully so) but blood was thicker than water. He couldn't let his brother go and screw up if there was even the slightest chance of preventing it. However, him helping Remus didn't mean he'd stopped protesting at every possible moment: he had been telling Remus exactly what he thought of Dumbledore's idea right from the moment they'd met earlier that day. Remus thought this rather annoying, but putting up with it was a small offer for what it got him: access to Azkaban.

Azkaban. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he felt extremely anxious – _okay, downright scared_ – when he thought about where he was going. Azkaban was where parents told their children the boogie man lived. It was where some of the most dangerous criminals were locked up. Where the Dementors had feasted on the prisoner's feelings. Where Sirius had spend twelve years of his life.

"We're nearly there," Romulus called over his shoulder. "I think I saw it already."

Sure enough, moments later, Remus saw the dim outline of a large building on a small island right head of him in the fog. Tiny pinpricks of light were just visible, guiding them. With every second they got closer, they got a better view of the wizard prison.

Remus had been right when he had described it as a fortress to Harry, three years ago. Azkaban was made of rough grey stones. There was one main tower, encircled by thick walls. The little windows – shooting holes really – were all barred. The courtyard – or what could be considered as such; Remus supposed this should be the prison yard – was cobbled save for a small patch of earth, which Remus assumed was the graveyard. The graves were unmarked.

A small pier stuck out into the sea, with one lamp hanging from a wooden post. The lamp was burning, but somehow that made the surroundings even more depressing. Romulus descended, heading for the pier; Remus followed him.

The wood of the pier was slick with water and seaweed, making Remus nearly slip when he landed. The sea was rough here, and large gulfs sometimes spilled over the pier.

"Charming place," he said sarcastically.

"This is where the prisoners come in," Romulus said. "They keep a boat in the town where we came from. It's used only when there are new prisoners to take to Azkaban – this pier is often one of the last things they'll see of the outside world."

If Romulus had intended to shut Remus up, he couldn't have chosen a better way to do it. From the moment he had landed, he seemed to be looking with both his own and Sirius' eyes. As he looked around, he seemed to be reliving a memory that wasn't his: a tiny boat, Aurors pushing a dark-haired man in a prison uniform out, leading him towards the fortress. Remus knew, without Sirius having told him so, that they hadn't forced him; Sirius had walked on his own, too stubborn and too proud and too insane with grief to be dragged to his doom. _He was only twenty-one for God's sake…_

"You coming?" Romulus interrupted.

"Yeah."

Remus followed his brother down the slippery pier towards the fortress. The strange fog, which did not disappear even though the wind was blowing fairly strongly, seemed thickest here, at Azkaban. Remus supposed it had something to do with the fact that the fog was created because the Dementors were reproducing, and as those creatures used to reside here at Azkaban, perhaps the fog was naturally drawn towards the place. Or perhaps it just liked the gloomy atmosphere.

The Lupin brothers passed through a small gate, barely more than a hole in the wall, and found themselves on the cobbled yard Remus had seen from above. Everything was quiet; the only sign of life was light shining through a grimy window on the ground floor of the tower.

Romulus headed straight for that light, because "not that I've been here before, but if that's the only sign there's some human life on this island, it would stand to reason that that's the place to go." And indeed, his knocks on the door were answered with permission to enter. They got in, happy to escape the chill of the fog.

The room they found themselves in was far more pleasant than one would expect at Azkaban. The warm, cosy fire in the hearth was the main reason for that, helped by the comfortable chairs close to it. A man was sitting in one of the chairs, hunched towards the fire; he looked up when Remus and Romulus entered. It was a fairly inconspicuous man; only the keen look in his eyes betrayed that he was worth more than he looked. One didn't become an Auror without a healthy dose of intelligence and perseverance.

"Good afternoon," he said. "That is, as far as it can be considered good. Have a seat."

"Thank you," Romulus said. Both he and Remus remained standing. "I'm afraid we haven't got much time."

"If I had to visit Azkaban, I wouldn't have much time too," the Auror said, sounding almost confidentially. "Unfortunately for me, I'm not you. Name's Colin Baker." He extended his hand.

"Romulus Lupin," Romulus said, shaking hands.

"Remus Lupin," Remus added, doing the same.

"If your brother didn't look fifteen years older, I'd think you were twins," Baker said to Romulus, grinning. "But that would be child abuse, those names."

"We're not twins," Romulus said. He had a slightly exasperated look on his face – it was far from the first time the Lupin siblings had had to explain this. "Long story short: parents went on honeymoon to Rome, conceived my dear older brother there. They decided to name him Remus because they had always liked him more – the whole tragic being killed thing. Three years later our mother was pregnant with me, and she and my father had jokingly agreed to name the kid Romulus if it was a boy and if he managed to be born on the same day as his brother. And here I am."

"So you have only yourself to blame," Remus pointed out.

"Well, yes. But the story of our names isn't the reason why we're here," Romulus changed the subject – to the disappointment of Colin Baker, it seemed; he would have enjoyed a nice chat far more than what sounded too much like work. "We want to talk to a prisoner."

"Oh really?" Baker asked a bit evasively. "Who?"

"Edmund Cooper. I believe he was convicted for manslaughter?"

Baker ignored the question. "And on whose authority are you here?"

"I work for the Werewolf Capture Unit," Romulus explained. "I want to ask Cooper a few questions."

"Can you identify yourself?" Baker had resigned himself to the fact that chitchat apparently wasn't going to happen anymore. Instead, he did his job as an Auror and checked Romulus' Capture Unit ID-card. "Okay, looks good. And he?" he asked, pointing at Remus.

"He's not working for the Unit, but he wanted to come along too."

"What, just for a lark?" Baker sounded sceptical, as he had reason to.

"No, I was the one who wanted to ask the questions in the first place," Remus explained quietly. "Because Mr Cooper might give us valuable information."

Baker looked him up and down. "One of them, aren't you?" he said abruptly. "I could have guessed, actually. So you want to conspire with him about the next killing you and your kind are planning? Is he going to give _you_ information or is it the other way around?"

"Mr Baker, there is absolutely no reason to think that," Romulus said sharply. "I assure you neither of us had something like that in mind. You just saw my identification; I work for the Capture Unit, and our visit here has to do with that. Not… the other side."

The Auror didn't seem convinced: he eyed Remus conspicuously. "Well, as long as you'll vouch for your brother," he said reluctantly.

"I do."

"Then I guess I have nothing to object. The identification's real; there's no legal ground for me to refuse you." He got to his feet, seemed to want to say something else but apparently thought better of it because he kept silent. He put on a cloak ("it's damn chilly outside") and beckoned for the Lupins to follow him.

"I'll show you where it is. I won't keep you company throughout your undoubtedly interesting conversation; however, one of my colleagues is near, and I'll ask him to keep an eye on you."

"Thank you," Romulus said.

Baker mumbled something inaudible, but didn't react otherwise. He led them outside, but only for a minute: after a few yards, there was a small, heavy wooden door, the real entrance to the tower. Baker opened it with three different keys, then gestured for them to walk inside.

It was near freezing here. The air was damp and cold, resulting in a temperature that chilled you to the bone. There was barely any lightning, save for a few torches in brackets above them. They could just make out a stone staircase, worn by the many feet which had climbed it.

"It's up here," Baker announced. "Not too high – the prisoners are ordered by, well, status, if you will."

"The higher, the more dangerous?" Romulus asked, as he climbed the first few steps. Baker followed and Remus brought up the rear.

"The opposite, actually – the most dangerous are kept in the basement, with as many doors and walls between them and the outside world as possible. Guarding them was easier when the Dementors were still around, but…"

"You actually got Death Eaters here, haven't you?" asked Romulus conversationally.

"Yeah, a handful. We captured them a few weeks ago in the Department of Mysteries."

Remus smiled a bit wryly at this 'news' – boy, did he know about what had happened in the Department of Mysteries. But he knew the Death Eaters caught were only minors ones. Lucius Malfoy was the most important, but now he and his fellow Death Eaters had failed to get the prophecy, it was unlikely he was very popular with Voldemort. Perhaps Azkaban was even the best place for him right now.

"Well, here we are," Baker announced. They had reached the fourth floor and stepped off the staircase. The circular staircase led upwards right in the centre of the tower, with the cells around it like the pieces of a big stone pie. An Auror was sitting on a stool against the wall, wrapped in a cloak. He looked up when the visitors appeared.

"Hullo, Johnson," Baker said. "Visitors for Cooper."

"He'll like that. Maybe that'll make him keep his mouth shut at night for once," Johnson said coolly, glaring at one of the cell doors with little barred windows. Remus followed the Auror's look, expecting a reply coming from inside, but nobody reacted.

"Well, if he keeps going on, maybe we should cut his rations again," Baker suggested.

Johnson scowled. "Anything but that! If we do that, he'll go on about what he'd _like_ to eat. And trust me, you don't want to hear it."

Baker gave an irritated sigh. "If only we still had the Dementors…"

"That'd actually save us a lot of trouble," Johnson agreed.

Remus felt a chill going up his spine that had nothing to do with being in Azkaban. The two men before him were calmly discussing killing a man – as good as killing him. It would _save them a lot of trouble_.

Romulus coughed politely but insistently. He looked at Remus in a way that told his brother that he wasn't feeling comfortable with this at all either and actually wanted to leave as soon as possible.

"Right, sorry," Baker apologised. "Standing around here isn't that pleasant. We've kind of forgotten it after such a long time."

Johnson muttered something that sounded much like "wish I could forget" but nobody reacted to it.

"I'm leaving them with you now, Johnson," Baker went on. "Just escort them downstairs once they're done, and I'll relieve you of your watch."

"Thanks," the other Auror said, sounding almost ridiculously grateful. "I'll do that." He watched Baker going down the stairs; then, when he'd disappeared, he turned rather viciously to the Lupins: "well? Get a move on."

"We… we'd hoped to talk to him in private – " Romulus began.

Johnson snorted. "It's Azkaban. There can be nothing to discuss that we're not allowed to hear."

Romulus looked at Remus, who shrugged resignedly. "Fine," he said. "We'll keep it short." He walked towards the door Johnson had been glaring at earlier. There was still no sound coming from inside, but the closer Remus got to the cell, the more he could feel the person locked inside. It send shivers down his spine. Instead of depressed or moody, or even remorseful, it felt gleefully expectant. It felt as if the prisoner had planned a practical joke on Remus and was now about to see the joke being pulled.

Also, the cell stank.

Remus flinched. "How often do they wash?" he asked.

"Wash?" Johnson repeated, and that was really answer enough.

Remus knocked on the door; a mere formality, as he was sure Cooper had heard the entire previous conversation. "Hello?"

"Hello."

It wasn't even the unexpected answer that chilled Remus, or from how close it came (Cooper must be standing right on the other side of the door). It was the _voice_. He had expected anything: mad shouting, feral rasping, insane giggling, even a sick, perverted breathy voice. But the man inside sounded completely sane, even refined. It conjured up images of maybe an accountant or a diplomat, someone in a dark suit and with neatly combed hair. Someone you'd expect to drink Earl Grey tea with a slice of lemon every afternoon at four o'clock, not someone to viciously rip people apart and eat their flesh.

"How do you do?" Cooper asked politely, making the discrepancy between the man and the monster even bigger.

"Fine, thank you," Remus said. "How do you do?"

"I've been better," Cooper said with a sense of irony. "If I may introduce myself? I'm Edmund Cooper. I would shake hands, but I'm afraid they're not very clean."

"Remus Lupin," Remus introduced himself. "And my brother – Romulus." He gestured vaguely to his brother. Romulus nodded and smiled politely in the direction of the barred window but did not come closer.

"Are you really?" Cooper asked, sounding interested. "How interesting."

"We're not twins," Remus clarified, just to be sure. "We have… interesting parents."

"Yes, I thought as much…"

Romulus frowned at this reaction, but Remus did not see it.

"I've come to ask you a few questions," he went on. "It'd be a great help."

"Will it be a great help to me too?" Cooper immediately asked. "You might have heard that they're planning on cutting my rations again. That wouldn't be very nice, would it?"

"I…" said Remus hesitantly.

"Apparently I'm doing something wrong that necessitates giving me less food. But that makes me only _hungrier_…" The last word got a sort of wild emphasis that suddenly completely belied the calm pose of before. The shock gave Remus the resolve he needed.

"That's not up to me to decide," he said calmly but firmly. "But if you tell me what I want to hear, maybe Mr Johnson here will be a little kinder to you."

Johnson didn't look as if he agreed with this plan, but Remus wasn't very much concerned with that; as long as Cooper believed him.

"Well…" the prisoner said pensively. "Alright. I'm feeling charitable today. What is it you want to know?"

"It concerns Fenrir Greyback."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Do you know where he is?" Remus got directly to the point.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Let's just say that's not really anything of your business."

"Let's just say it is," Cooper replied. "I happen to be very protective of dear old Fenrir. That is, I happen to be very protective of my own _life_, which will be worth exactly nothing if he finds out I blabbed about where he is."

"Even if you could save lives with it?"

Cooper was silent for a few moments. "Go on," he said.

Remus was all too aware of the two men behind him; both working for the Ministry of Magic and both able to get him in a lot of trouble if they wanted to. But he had no choice: he only had to picture Dumbledore's disappointment to motivate him to go on.

"Listen," he said. "I think we both realise that Greyback has habits which are beyond repulsive. Especially his habits of biting small children. Somebody ought to stop it."

"You."

"Yeah," said Remus, uncomfortable at suddenly being thrust into a sort of hero-position. On the other hand, telling the truth could get even more uncomfortable. By announcing that he didn't just think Greyback disgusting but that he was also firmly on Dumbledore's side, he'd really proclaim himself one of the enemies. And that would definitely keep Cooper from talking. "Yeah," he said again. "Somebody ought to stop him."

"Interesting to see that you, of all people, are apparently on the Ministry's side," said Cooper, sounding mildly amused even. "I would've thought that you'd be only too happy to join our side."

"Why's that?" Remus asked sharply. "What on earth makes you think – "

"Oh, I know all about you, of course," Cooper cut in. "Fenrir's talked quite often about you, did you know? You made the best of all of us. Teacher at Hogwarts! And well after you were bitten, too. Yes, Fenrir quite gloated about it."

"What – "

"Shame that the Ministry had to ruin it, but then they always do, don't they?"

"What could Greyback possibly have to gloat about?" Remus said, feeling disgusted. The mere thought of Greyback speaking in positive terms about his year as a teacher seemed to taint the whole memory of it. "What does he have to do with anything? Listen, I just want to know where he is. Tell me and I'll leave you alone."

"It's not that simple. Of course Fenrir would gloat about it, he's always interested in his own kin. He keeps an eye on us all."

"Which 'us'?" Remus snapped. "There is no us. Greyback is a sick freak and I frankly don't want anything to do with him, but I have no choice. So for the last time, tell me – "

"Wait a minute," Cooper cut in. Remus could now see his hands and a little of his face; he had clasped the bars of the door and pulled his face close to it, staring intently at Remus. "But… you don't know of course."

"What?" Remus said irritably.

Cooper did not seem to hear it. "_Has_ he pulled it off?" he muttered to himself. "I can't believe it. It seemed such a bluff…So unlikely that anyone would fall for it."

"_What_?" Remus repeated.

The imprisoned werewolf finally looked at him again. "It's hard to believe," he said. "Trust me, Fenrir does have a lot to do with you. I just can't believe no-one's told you yet."

"What, he's after the Defence Against the Dark Arts job himself and is now using me as an example that he has a chance at it too?" Remus said sarcastically.

"Not remotely," Cooper said. "Although he would never refuse if he got offered the job – so many children right under his nose…"

Remus flinched at the thought.

"But it doesn't seem that's a likely prospect," continued Cooper regretfully. "You're just going to have to figure out what I mean by yourself. You asked about Fenrir's whereabouts, not about his connection to you. As for where he hangs out, I can only advice you to look at the fringes and underground, that'll get you the most result. He moves from place to place, of course, but if you're lucky you might find him. Get word out that you're looking for him and he might even come to you. As for the rest, I'm not saying anything."

"At the fringes and underground?" Remus repeated. "And what _connection_?"

"Sorry, question and answer session is over," Cooper announced brusquely. He turned away from the window, but turned back for a moment to add: "interesting parents, eh? Perhaps you should start there."

Both Remus and Romulus started as though Cooper had just announced that Greyback had been planning on murdering their parents. "Excuse me?" Romulus snapped. "What are you insinuating?"

"What do you mean?" Remus said sharply; this time he was the one grasping the bars.

"Nice, tender flesh," Cooper purred from somewhere in the dark cell. "Warm blood gushing out. The snap of little bones… Do you know blood tastes quite different to a werewolf than it does to a human? It's not at all like when you cut your thumb and put it in your mouth. Tasting blood can almost make you get high, it's so nice and sweet – "

"That's enough!" Johnson, the Auror, had stepped in. He threateningly pointed his wand through the bars of the window. "Shut up of I'll stun you – again!"

Cooper giggled softly, but kept quiet. Remus suddenly became aware of his surroundings again: the cells around him, the circular staircase and the two men now standing next to him.

"You okay?" Romulus asked worriedly. Remus thought he could ask his brother the same thing: Romulus looked as shaken as he felt.

"About as well as you are, I think," he said. He looked at the door of Cooper's cell. "I've heard enough. Let's get out of here."

The other two quite agreed with him. They descended the stairs in silence; both the Lupins were too busy thinking to bother with conversations. Johnson let them out of the tower and carefully locked the three locks of the door again.

"Are you coming inside for a moment or are you going off right now?" Johnson asked.

Remus looked at Romulus for a moment; his brother nodded and shook his head at the same time in a sort of charade for 'let's get out'. "We're leaving right now, thank you," he said.

"Well, I hope you got what you were looking for," the Auror said. "This was the most we ever got out of him."

"We'll be able to work with it," Remus said, even though he wasn't sure just _how_ he was going to work out all the vague hints and information.

"Good luck then."

They said goodbye to Johnson (_hope I'll never have to see you again_, they all thought), got their brooms from where they'd put them and walked slowly towards the peer. For quite a while, neither of them said anything, as each was too busy thinking and worrying.

Remus turned around to look at Azkaban's main tower for a moment before he walked through the narrow gate to the peer. He could barely see the top of it because of all the fog; the light on the ground floor was still the only one he could see. Azkaban had always been a thing from horror stories and nightmares. Sirius had told him about it (albeit very little) but he had nevertheless had a hard time picturing how just dreary and depressing the place was. Now he was standing here, he tried to picture spending twelve years, a third of his life, here – not even here, but in the basement, behind several locked doors, with hardly any fresh air, let alone sunlight. Twelve years in a dark cell like Cooper's, and with Dementors at one's door too. "It _would_ have taken an obsession to survive twelve years of that," he muttered.

"Remus, are you coming?" Romulus called.

"Yes."

He turned his back to the tower and walked through the gate onto the slippery peer. Romulus was already waiting for him, his broom ready.

"Let's go, fast," he said. "Let's go someplace more cheerful. Chocolate's on me."

Remus gave a small smile. "I'll keep you to that." He mounted his broom, but waited before he kicked off. "When are we going to Mum and Dad and… discuss this?"

"Not today," Romulus said immediately. "Not tomorrow. To be honest, I don't want to go and dig up family secrets at all."

"Me neither." Remus sighed. "But I'll have to."

"Curse Dumbledore."

"Yes, I know."

"And that's the first time you admitted it. You're making progress." Romulus patted him on the shoulder. "You know what, for the time being we're just going to assume that _this_ was Aunt Alice's big secret, why Granny never wanted to talk about her: Obviously she has a big dark werewolfy past. And that's the end of it, no more worries about what it could be."

"Stop joking about it," Remus said.

"I have to, before I go batshit insane," Romulus replied coolly but earnestly.

Remus looked at his brother for a few moments. Black humour wasn't new to him: it had been Sirius' favourite kind of humour, in fact. As Romulus looked back at him, he could see the fear in his eyes, and paleness in his face that had nothing to do with the cold or the fog but everything with worry about what the information they had just got could imply. Yes, he was joking, but only to cover up how he really felt.

"Come," Remus said kindly, suddenly feeling so very much the older brother. "This _place_ is driving us batshit insane. We're off."

Romulus led the way again, utterly glad to go away from Azkaban. Remus wished he could say he was glad to leave; instead, he felt even more miserable than when he'd arrived.

* * *

A few days later, Kingsley nearly killed one of the Weasley's chicken.

It happened entirely by accident. It was near dark, he had never been there before, he had just Apparated to the Burrow and in his search for the door he tripped over one of the chickens pecking her way across the Weasley's lawn. Judging by the sound the poor animal made he had nearly broken her neck. It certainly sounded that way to Molly Weasley, who ran out of the house thinking Death Eaters had come to kill them all _and _steal her chicken. She definitely hadn't expected Kingsley Shacklebolt nearly shouting at the chicken to keep quiet for Merlin's sake, and then explain – rather sheepishly – what had happened. It was the joke of the evening, and the Auror had to suffer much laughing and teasing because of it.

"How do you recognise a city-dweller?" Bill laughed. "You should move _away _from the clucking."

"Well, how was I supposed to know," Kingsley muttered, pretending to be annoyed. "Those animals are lethal, really."

"Poor Kingsley," Tonks said, feigning concern. "You know what? We'll give you a dozen little chicken to practice on."

"No," groaned Kingsley.

"Free eggs!" Bill said bracingly.

"We'll get you a rooster, too, so you won't need an alarm clock anymore. Your neighbours will, um… hate you, probably." Tonks burst into giggling.

"Yeah Tonks, I like you too," Kingsley said moodily, making her laugh even more. "Remus," he said over her head to the man sitting on Tonks' other side and not joining in the laughter, "you must think us all very silly people."

Remus smiled weakly. "Not at all. People who trip over chicken and who give out free chicken are my kind of people."

"I'll ask Molly to give you some chicken, too," Tonks said, patting his arm consolingly. "So you won't feel left out." Her smile turned to a frown when he gave another of his small, sad smiles. "Is something wrong?" she asked, sounding worried this time.

"No, nothing much," he said – lied.

She opened her mouth to ask more but was interrupted by Dumbledore getting to his feet and opening the meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. He announced his regret that barely half of the Order had been able to make it, 'but then again,' he said, 'the entire Order would have been too much of a burden on our hostess', with a kind smile to Molly Weasley. Most of the missing members were too busy with their respective tasks, he added, and would report to him later.

He began the meeting with a short account of what had happened the past week, the most important news being the replacement of Cornelius Fudge by Rufus Scrimgeour as Minister for Magic. This was discussed briefly, the main topic of interest being how the change would affect the Order of the Phoenix itself. Dumbledore expected that they probably wouldn't even really notice it – as far as he knew, Scrimgeour wasn't aware of the existence of the Order, just as Fudge hadn't been, and as far as Dumbledore was concerned that wasn't going to change. He didn't need the Ministry sticking its nose in his affairs (he didn't say that it those exact words).

Then followed the usual reporting-session, in which individual Order-members announced what he had been doing. Arthur, Bill and Tonks told how the atmosphere in the Ministry had changed, what with there being a new Minister and all those Death Eater attacks. Kingsley was now working for the Muggle Prime Minister, on Scrimgeour's orders, and could therefore relate some interesting information from the Muggle side of things. He had to admit that it bothered him slightly that the Muggles were being kept so completely in the dark: they were now so helpless, so _defenceless_. If the Death Eaters attacked, they literally wouldn't know what had hit them. Dumbledore nodded vaguely to indicate that he had heard Kingsley, but did not openly agree or disagree with him.

Remus, meanwhile, barely kept his attention with the meeting. He had reported beforehand; that is, Dumbledore had looked at him in that way that he had, where a single look could ask a dozen questions. Remus had merely nodded and said that 'things would work out' and that was apparently enough for the both of them. Dumbledore at least had the sense to trust Remus' own judgement.

So instead of paying attention, he was worrying. A favourite pastime of his. He was currently going through different scenarios, each one playing out differently in his head but all with the same premise: telling Tonks that they were being insane and that they couldn't see each other anymore. He wasn't sure how she'd react (_would she shout? Would she cry? Would she turn violent and start throwing things?_), he only knew it wasn't going to be easy, hence the trying-out of different scenarios. He wanted to be prepared.

Oh, he had thought it out alright. It all made sense, really, now he had thought about it. First of all, there was the danger-aspect on the short term. She knew Dumbledore had asked him to go on a dangerous mission (he hadn't dared to tell her the specifics, only that it had necessitated a visit to Azkaban which had worried her enough. His short, detail-less account of the visit hadn't been easy on her either.), so that was reason number one to break up. Secondly, there was the long-term aspect of it: he was a werewolf. He only had to forget his usual precautions and he'd kill her without knowing it. And even further away, what of possible children? He didn't even want to think about it. That made reason number two. Thirdly, there was the age aspect. She was _thirteen _years younger than he was. She had been four – not even able to read properly – when he'd left Hogwarts. She was still sleeping with plush animals then, and playing tag with Sirius. It was disturbing. He felt like a cradle-robber. So, reason number three. As for number four, he had done some calculating and he was dead sure that, if there ever was going to be anything more than snogging and things were looking in the direction of 'rings', 'engagement' and even 'wedding' and 'marriage', he wasn't going to be able to afford it. He had a meagre monthly support from the Werewolf Registry, he could barely live on it himself, let alone with a wife, and – God forbid – children. Which made four sound reasons for breaking up. Besides, there hadn't even really been anything anyway, so what were they breaking up? Nothing.

Or so he told himself.

"Which concludes our meeting for this evening," Dumbledore cut through his thoughts. A murmur rose after these words, increasing as everybody got to his feet and rummaged about for cloaks, gloves, brooms or bags. Dumbledore himself quietly slipped on his travelling cloak – he had a way of seemingly suddenly disappearing in a crowd, even though he had been the centre of attention only moments before – and walked out of the door before anyone else had the chance too. He was, as always these days, followed directly by Snape, who had apparently taken on the habit of shadowing the Headmaster.

"Now, tea then, I think," Molly announced.

"Not for me, thanks, Molly," Kingsley excused himself. "I'd best be going home."

"D'you want to take some eggs home with you?" Arthur asked. Kingsley laughed, but by now it looked rather forced.

"No thanks."

"Remus, you do want some tea, right?" Molly asked rather threateningly. Then again, the threat might not have been directed at him: Fleur Delaceur, Bill's fiancée, had finally been allowed back in after "zuch a long time waiting!' and was greeting her intended with enthusiasm, much to the annoyance of her future mother-in-law. And Molly had never been very good at hiding her sympathy – or antipathy.

"Yes, thank you," Remus said. He took advantage of a momentarily distraction – Ron, Hermione and Ginny had just entered as well, lured by the prospect of tea and biscuits – by taking Tonks by the arm. "Could I have a word?"

"Even more than one."

"Good." He steered her, rather gently, out of the living room. He had no idea which room was where, so he randomly opened doors and he eventually found himself in a sort of garage annex hobby room. It smelled of old rubber Wellington boots, sawdust and oil. It'd have to do. "In here, please."

She looked around bemusedly. "I liked the living room better, actually."

He ignored the comment. "We need to talk."

She smiled slyly. The last few times they'd 'talked', they hadn't done much actual talking. They mouths had been busy, though.

He recognised the look in her eyes. "No, really," he said. "I'm serious."

"Sorry, of course," she apologised. She brushed with her hand over her face, seemingly wiping the smile off it. She looked completely serious now. "Talk."

_Right. Easier said than done. Talk_. "I've been thinking," he began. "About things. About… us. And the past few weeks. You know."

"I know," she confirmed. Her expression was unfathomable.

"And I've reached a conclusion." He decided it was best to just go on: things like this couldn't be brought gently. "We should break up."

"Oh." Still that unfathomable look on her face. She looked about the room for a moment, then went to lean against one of the wooden tables littered with Arthur's Muggle artefacts. She crossed her arms before her chest. "Why?"

Reasons. He could do this. Just go them off one by one. "Well, first of all," he began, "it was too dangerous. Because of what I need to do for Dumbledore, because of the war, because of… everything. Secondly – "

"Wait a minute," she interrupted, raising one hand. "Don't tell me you made a _list _of reasons."

He said nothing.

"Okay," she said, sounding decidedly annoyed now. "Fine. Continue. Secondly?"

"Again the danger," he said. "I'm a werewolf. That should say enough. I could harm you without even realising it. It's too dangerous; I can't subject you to that."

"Thirdly?" was the cool reply.

"The age difference," he continued. He'd begun feeling a little uncomfortable; she still hadn't really lashed out or anything. "We're thirteen years apart. That's too much. I'm much too old for you."

Tonks downright glared at him. "Fourthly?" she asked acidly.

"Money questions," he admitted. "I won't be able to support you, financially." He pulled one of the sleeves of his tattered robes as an example. "I can barely support myself."

"I see," she said coolly. "Well. Very… reasonable reasons. I really can't argue against them. You obviously thought about it."

Her sarcastic tone warned him. "But?"

"But there're these tiny little things also involved in relationships, which you apparently happily glossed over," she snapped. " You might have heard of them. They're called _feelings._"

"There are more important things than love," he said quietly.

She gave a barely inaudible gasp of shock and anger. "Such as?" she snarled.

"Such as being able to live."

"Some people would actually consider being with the one they love as truly living."

"Well, there's a difference between having what you want and being sensible," he replied.

"Oh right." She gave a hollow laugh. "I forgot. We're being _sensible_."

"Honestly," he said softly. "I think this is the best way. Better end it now, than – "

"End up sorry?" she finished. "Remus, how… _could you_?"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"I'm not even sure you are," she half-shouted. "I can't believe you can tell me all this so calmly. Have you no feelings at all?"

"I have," he said. "But I can't afford to act on them."

"And did you even for a moment stop to think how _I _would think about this?" she asked furiously. "All the things you just said might seem fine enough to you, but if you ask me it's absolute bollocks. Damn it, Remus, I love you. And I can't just stop doing that."

"You'll get over it," he said; he was convinced of it. "You're young. You'll find someone else more suitable for you. You'll forget about me and move on."

"I _can't_," she shouted. She wildly grabbed an old towel from the table and threw it at him in anger; it missed him and hit the wall instead. "And I _won't_."

"Yes, you will," he insisted forcefully. "You'll have to."

"Make me." She glared at him.

"Damnit, Tonks." He was starting to get decidedly annoyed now. "For God's sake, stop being so stubborn and start seeing sense. There's no way it would work."

"Start seeing sense yourself," she bit back. "Because, to tell you the truth Remus, you don't seem to get it. I won't be able to get over you and move on, because I won't be able find anybody just like you."

"You'll find someone better," he said.

She gave him an 'I can't believe you just said that' kind of look. "No, I won't," she said. "Because there is nobody better. Or do you really think I can find a guy who'll accept my job, the whole thing with the Order of the Phoenix and my being a Metamorphmagus _and_ be understanding and supportive about… what happened to Sirius?"

"You'll find someone," he insisted.

"Stop being so _dense_," she shouted. "_Nobody _I know has been to me like that, okay? Nobody I know has been to me like you've been in the past two weeks, and I really don't believe I'll ever find someone who will. Ever since Sirius died – "

"Please," he said slightly irritably, "don't drag Sirius into this too."

"Oh, I'm supposed to _get over that_ too?" she said disbelievingly.

"No," he said hastily. "Not like that. But… It's been nice, the past weeks," he admitted. "Amazing, sometimes. But it can't go on like this. It's been like an amazingly real dream, but you can't continue living in a dream. You have to go on."

"But without each other," she said.

He reached out and touched her cheek with his hand. She let him, even though she narrowed her eyes at his touch – but that was only to hide the tears that had begun to fill her eyes. "Yes," he said. "Without each other." For a moment, he allowed himself to caress her cheek one last time. He stroked the locks of hair that half covered her ears. "So dark," he murmured. "Sheer black."

"Like Sirius's," she said evenly. "Like my aunt's."

"His death wasn't your fault," he told her gently. "There was nothing you could have done to stop her."

"Keep saying that. Maybe I'll get over that _too_."

"You will." He couldn't help himself; he cupped her face in both his hands, getting closer to her than he'd wanted. "You will. One day you'll realise it, that this was all some thing of the past, and you'll shrug it off, and turn your hair some insane colour again and move on."

"I won't," she said icily. "I won't, no matter what you say. Now let go of me." He did, and she stepped back immediately. Her hearth-shaped face was pale and she had a hurt look in her eyes, as if he had just betrayed her. "Don't tell me to get over it. Don't tell me to just forget about it and move on. Don't _ever _tell me what to do again."

"Tonks –!" But she'd already sharply turned on her heels and left the room, slamming the door behind her. He flinched.

"Remus, you fucking idiot," he scolded himself. "Real smooth, for God's sake." He agitatedly paced around the room for a few moments, running his hands through his hair. He had done exactly what he had set out to do, and she hadn't reacted in an overtly unexpected way either. So now he only had to deal with the _immense _feeling of guild he had – which proved harder than he thought. Telling yourself something and half convincing yourself that it's the truth is one thing, but it's quite another to tell it someone else and have all kinds of objections (some of which you'd had yourself) flung back at you is quite another.

After a while, he remembered that he was at the Weasley's instead of safely at his own house. He opened the door and walked into the hallway, hoping that he could sneak out without being noticed. He dreaded the explanation he'd undoubtedly have to give.

"Professor Lupin?"

He froze momentarily, but then recognized the voice. "Hermione?"

"Yes, sir." The sixteen-year old girl stepped from the staircase where she had been standing. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, fine," he lied. He felt the girl was being too inquisitive and observant for her own good – and it wasn't the first time he had felt so.

"Oh, good. It's just… I heard some noise. Is Tonks alright?"

"She wasn't feeling so well, actually," he made up on the spot, "so she went home. Listen –," after a look in the direction of the kitchen and living room, from which a loud chatting and laughter was coming, "I think I'm going home too. Could you tell the others?"

"Of course," she said. She looked at him inquisitively – he could almost _see_ that big brain of hers whirring, trying to figure out what was going on – but she asked no further.

"Thanks," he said, and made for the door. Once outside, he Apparated right away.

There was no place like home, especially now.

* * *

There is no place like home, as they say. One of the best things of home is that you can slam the door shut as hard as you like, and never mind the neighbours.

So, slamming the door loudly was exactly what Tonks did when she came home.

She didn't bother with her cloak, she didn't bother picking up the mail on the doormat, she paid no mind to the withering plants on the window sills, and instead of turning on a few small lights she lit all the lamps at once with one angry swish of her wand.

There was a storm raging inside of her, and she very much wanted to take it out on someone.

She compensated her lack of punching bags by pacing round the small flat and alternatively snarling, shouting and crying, all accompanied by rather violent hand gestures. It was a good thing she lived on her own; nobody would have been allowed to hear this monologue.

"How dare he," she spat furiously. "How _dare_ he? Where did he get the guts to tell me that? I'll cut them out for crying out loud! _Get over it _indeed! Well, I _won't do it_." She had shouted that last part. She aggressively took off her cloak and threw it on the couch, if only to have something to throw. "He can't make me and I don't give a _damn_. I don't," she told her reflection – by now, she'd arrived in the bathroom, and she was glaring at herself glaring back. "I really don't. He can drop dead for all I care." Her reflection said it back to her.

She calmed a bit, although there was still a frown of anger on her forehead. "I just don't care," she said softly. She pensively touched her black hair. "And he has nothing to say about my hair either. What the hell does he know about it?"

Nothing. He knew nothing about it. The truth behind her black hair wasn't just that it reminded her of Sirius and of her aunt Bellatrix (and, thus, of the revenge she was some day going to take, some way or other), but also that she hadn't really felt like another hair colour lately. Bright pink was too festive, and she didn't feel festive, or whimsical, or just in a good mood, which were always the times she most felt like changing her appearance. She just didn't feel like _bothering_ changing, and couldn't really concentrate on it. Besides, there hadn't been a real need lately, no secret missions for the Auror Headquarters or even somebody asking her to change her appearance for a lark. Therefore, she'd staid dark-haired.

"I'll show him gotten over it," she muttered vengefully. She tugged her hair. "Pink, hm?" She closed her eyes and thought really hard of the exact shade she wanted. Bright strawberry bubblegum pink. She'd show him.

A familiar itch went over her scalp, and she could almost feel it glide over her hair, making the strands wave. She shuddered slightly, but with pleasure, before she opened her eyes: Metamorphmaging felt the same as suddenly getting goose bumps.

But it wasn't the right shade of pink.

She tugged her hair again, annoyed. "Too pale," she said to it. "Like washed-out strawberry bubblegum." She screwed up her eyes again and concentrated.

Still too pale.

"Back to black and try again," she muttered irritably. A few moments later, her hair was black again – but now with a faint pink hue to it.

"Damnit!" she shouted to her reflection. "Just do it already!" Again she shut her eyes and concentrated deeply. She felt her toes curl with the effort. Hair should do as it was told and not develop a mind of its own.

But the pink was still there, faintly but definitely.

Tonks cursed, giving her hair another sharp tug. Screwing her eyes up again, she quickly went through a succession of hair colours, from blonde to green and all the colours of the rainbow in between. At one point she even carefully went from hue to hue (white-blonde, blonde, faint gold, strawberry blonde, reddish, deep red, auburn, brown…) but each colour always had a faint tint of the last one in it, and after ten changes or so even a tint of the three previous colours. And the mix got more pronounced as she went on, eventually resulting in a literally dishwater-blonde colour.

"This – can't – happen," she told herself. Not being able to properly change had happened before. As a child, she'd caught a terribly bad flue once and had been ill for _weeks_. She'd been delirious with fever, and her mother had had a day's work just wiping the sweat off her body and cleaning the drenched sheets. She had been much too weak and out of balance to even try and make her eyebrows change colour – usually the simplest thing she could do. Suddenly losing her talent had terribly upset her, and it had taken both her parents to reassure her that things were going to be alright. Even then she had only believed it when, one morning, she had idly tried to make her nails grow and the nail of the right index finger had grown half an inch before her eyes.

This was going to be the same thing, she told herself. She was just out of sorts, nothing to worry about. She just needed to calm down.

She left the bathroom and sat on the couch for a minute, remembering to breathe slowly and deliberately. Angry thoughts about Remus were being repressed: she needed to calm down, not upset herself even more. He wanted her to get over it? She would. And she would be just the same as she had been before.

After she'd concluded that she had sufficiently cooled down, she returned to the bathroom. She faced her reflection wearily: this was going to work. It had to work. She screwed up her eyes again and thought with all her might of the colour she wanted to have, a normal brown, just a shade darker and better than the dishwater-blonde she was stuck with now.

And it actually worked. She slowly, hesitantly almost, felt an itch creep over her scalp. Her hair seemed to shudder with the strain, but when she opened her eyes her hair was brown. An uninteresting, boring shade of brown, but it was at least no longer blonde.

"See?" she said. "Nothing wrong." Her tone of voice wasn't as triumphant as her words, however: the strain it had taken to get to this dull colour had been rather worrying. It was harder to change to something completely different, but dishwater-blonde and brown weren't that far apart. It shouldn't have taken more than the blink of an eye. Perhaps she _was _loosing her touch?

She shook her head violently. "No," she told her reflection. "No, no, no. Not that _too_." She screwed up her eyes again. _Something easy. Just… just the bangs lighter than this. Just that. _She concentrated hard, screwing her eyes shut until it was painful. Then she opened them again to see what had happened.

Nothing.

It was like a slap in the face. She closed her eyes again, trembling with the effort. This _had _to work. It just had to.

But it didn't work again. No matter how hard she tried, she stayed just the same as she was now – pale, puffy-eyed, dark-eyed and brown-haired. And it wouldn't change.

And this time, there was nobody to tell her things were going to be alright.


	4. Confessions

**OMGFINALLYNEWCHAPTER. ****Yeah. That took... three months? I'm such a slacker...**

**Anyway, new chapter. Loads of wangst in this, but that's canon so sorry. I wish it was different, too, but it's what I have to write. **

**Many thanks to Amy for beta'ing this. I changed the few bits you commented on; I hope this is better. To all the others: I hope you enjoy it! I'm not making any promises as to when the next chapter will be posted, but I just hope it'll take less time than this one has...**

**Enjoy!

* * *

**

June 1996.

"_I did not know, for a very long time, the identity of the werewolf who had attacked me. I even felt pity for him, thinking that he had had no control. knowing by then how it felt to transform. But Greyback is not like that."_

* * *

Remus and Tonks did not see each other for several days after their break-up. Both were too busy with work, both for the Order of the Phoenix and the Ministry of Magic. This lack of contact suited Remus just fine. In fact, it was just what he needed to keep his resolve intact and his determination to stay away from Tonks firm. It was one thing to decide to physically stay away from the woman you love, but it's quite another to stop thinking about her. Literally not seeing her prevented him giving in to temptation.

The separation suited Tonks much less fine. Rationally speaking, she could see his point – but she didn't want to be rational. To her, there was a time to be rational and times to satisfy ones emotional needs, and those last weeks of June were one of the latter kind.

The problem was that, apart from Remus, she didn't really have anybody to go to and vent her frustrations. She had had friends in Hogwarts, but she lost touch with them due to the gruellingly hard training program she went through to become an Auror: training demanded all her attention. Her colleagues were all at least a few years older than she was. There was Kingsley of course, with who she had developed some kind of sibling-relationship, but he now spend most of his time at Downing Street Ten. And while she also briefly entertained the thought of going to her mother and complain, all those suggestions faced one problem: _how _do you explain that you really want to date a thirteen-year older werewolf who doesn't want to date you _and_ make it clear and understandable that you're really bothered by that? Because she could just see the expression on her mother's face if she came home and told her: "Mum, I have a problem. It's my fault Sirius died, even though people tell me it's not and I _know _it's not but I still feel really bad about it. Also, I'm in love with Sirius' best friend, who's a werewolf and thirteen year older than me, and without a job of any kind. What do I do now?" She loved her mother, but she had some doubts about how sympathetic she'd be.

So with all that going on, who could blame her really for not focussing on her work but doodling on her paperwork instead?

_

* * *

Monthly report of… the headline of the piece of parchment read. Under it, little stick-wizards were duelling, and circle-shaped creatures with short legs were running around. Accompanying the mess was an inkblot that hadn't been supposed to get so big but Tonks' sleeve had accidentally smudged it out. She'd have to wash that shirt now, and it was a new one too. Damn._

She raised her head from where it was resting on her arm and looked at the photographs on her desk. Her mother was looking mildly reprimanding, as always: she'd wanted an elegant young lady for a daughter, not a tomboy. She wouldn't name a tomboy _Nymphadora_. Tonks grimaced at her mother, then smiled at the man next to her mother: her father, kind and forgiving as always. He smiled encouragingly back at her, and slightly mischievous; it had always been the two of them against Andromeda. And Andromeda and Nymphadora against Ted. And sometimes Ted and Andromeda against Nymphadora, but they loved her too much to let that happen often.

Right next to that photograph was a very old one of her and Sirius she had put up in honour of him, although she told everybody else it was because she liked how cute she used to look when she was five. Sirius was alternating between tickling her five-year old self and giving the twenty-three-year old Tonks sly grins. She smiled moodily back and waved at him with her quill.

"_Are _you planning on finishing that anytime soon or not?"

Tonks looked up. Her colleague and most annoying cubicle-mate James Fletcher was glaring at her and her blotted sheet of parchment. He seemed to think her insufferable as a colleague anyway, and her messing up her report didn't appear to help much to heighten his opinion of her.

"I'm nearly done," she muttered. She returned her attention to her report and began filling it in.

"I don't know why I bother asking you anyway," James complained as he sat down. "You're just doing what you want, and nobody complains."

"Except for you," she said softly. She thoughtfully scratched the tip of her nose with her quill as she contemplated what she would write down under 'Activities you performed this month'.

"Everybody always thinks you're the best person to hang around with because you're, quote, _so much fun_, unquote. "Well, you've gone awfully boring as of late." He eyed her mousy-brown hair rather disdainfully. "You don't even turn your hair insane colours anymore."

"I thought you hated that?" she snapped.

"Well, yeah," he admitted. "But it at least added some colour to my surroundings. Not that you don't usually do that." He glanced at her Weird Sisters poster which had several bright-pink notes stuck on it. Each note had a funny saying or comment on it and arrows or speech-bubbles pointing to the band members. It had been Tonks idea of livening things up.

"Glad to be of service," Tonks said.

"But seriously," he continued. "You look… no offence, but you like you match the weather outside. You look _boring_. Why?"

"Why do you even care?" she said evasively.

He snorted. "I have to _look_ at it about eight hours a day."

She said nothing but continued writing ('_Assisted in the capture of several Death Eaters_', was that a good way to describe it?).

"No really," he pressed on. "Do me a favour. Change your hair."

She snapped. "Damnit Fletcher, I'm not a monkey," she bit. "You can't _command _me to do things!"

"God, is it that time of the month again?" he said, revolted.

"Why do men automatically assume it's _that_?" she snarled. "If I was a werewolf, you'd regret that comment."

"What kind of a comment is that?" he said. "Completely random! You're _not_ a werewolf."

It _had_ been completely random, she realised. _Perhaps some unconscious remnant of one of Remus' complaints about times of the months or something_, she thought.

"Go jump off a bridge," she replied intelligently – it was the first thing that had come to mind.

"Good company you are!" he said angrily. "Much fun to hang around!"

"Screw you too," she said, and immediately shot an apologetic glance to her mother's picture.

"Is everything alright here?"

Tonks and James both looked up guiltily. Looking around the corner of their cubicle was Mortimer Pendleton, one of their superiors and the Auror in charge of the assignments. You did not want to get on his bad side if you wanted to end up someplace decent.

"Yeah, sure," James said. "Fine. We were just having a…"

"Conversation," Tonks said, glaring at James. "And we were just finished."

"Good," Pendleton said amiably. "Can I have your reports? And Tonks, could I have a word with you?"

"Sure," she said. She snatched James' report out of his hands and put it over her own blotched one so that her unusual style of filling it in was concealed as long as possible. James seemed to want to say something about this but kept his tongue in the end.

Tonks followed Pendleton down the corridor through the cubicles and past the elevators to his office. It was fairly large, and yet incredibly cramped: cluttering the desk and floor were piles and piles of sheets of parchment, and the wall was concealed by rows of filing cabinets.

"Do take a seat," Pendleton said, gesturing vaguely to a chair covered in parchments.

"No, thank you," Tonks said gingerly.

"I insist," he said friendly. He shut the door behind him and walked towards the only free chair: the one behind the desk. Tonks did as she was told, put the pile of parchments on the floor and sat down too.

"Now," Pendleton said. He folded his hands and beamed at her, the image of warmth and paternity. It was helped by the way he looked: slightly balding, reading-glasses perched on his nose and wearing a comfortable old jumper over his robes. In fact, he suddenly reminded Tonks very much of Arthur Weasley. The only part were the comparison went wrong was where Pendleton was a very competent Auror, who had captured several Death Eaters and who had fought alongside Rufus Scrimgeour. It wasn't for nothing that the former Head of the Auror Headquarters trusted the assigning of the other Aurors to this inconspicuous-looking man. It took someone intelligent and capable of planning to perform such a nightmarish task satisfactorily. He didn't look like much, but appearances certainly deceived here.

Tonks told herself off for suddenly comparing him more to Remus than to Arthur.

"Sir?" she broke the silence.

"Yes," he smiled. "Why you are here. First of all, how are you now? After the whole… deal at the Department of Mysteries. A disaster, in more ways than one. Shacklebolt told me more in-debt what had happened – are you alright?"

"I'm… okay," she said hesitantly. She had to smile inwardly at Kingsley telling the whole story instead of her: he would probably always get her out of harms way if he could help it. "I'll live."

"Good! Good!" he said mock-enthusiastically. "Excellent! Can't do much with dead Aurors."

She grinned despite herself. "Perhaps using Inferi would work."

"Not after we've send out leaflets telling people to avoid them. We would be in an awful mess if we tried to help and all people did was run away screaming." He grinned too. "Not really the effect we're going for."

"Quite."

"But seriously," he continued. "You _are _doing fine? I know first-hand what it is to be in a battle and see people get injured – or worse. It's not something you shrug off. If you need it, I can arrange professional guidance at St. Mungo's; there are Healers trained just for this kind of things. Just say it and it's done."

She suddenly found herself teary-eyed at his kindness, and had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying. "I'm fine," she said.

"I noticed the lack of colour lately," he said, nodding to her hair.

"I'm just out of sorts," she answered slightly evasively. "It'll be alright."

"Glad to hear it." He smiled at her. "Now, what I asked you here for." He shuffled through his papers and finally plucked one out. "I'm sad to say that, despite it being the summer holidays, I've got work to do for you."

"That's alright," she said. "It's not good weather for lying on the beach anyway."

"Indeed. I'm making it worse – I'm sending you to Scotland." He handed her the sheet of parchment.

"Sir?" she asked, confused. She took the sheet but kept looking at him.

"To Hogsmeade, to be exact. We thought it wiser to station a couple of Aurors there, to both guard the town and to keep an eye on Hogwarts."

"Do you think that's necessary, sir?" Tonks quickly read through the information on the piece of parchment. She would be accompanied by three colleagues of hers, none of whom she knew very well.

"I'm afraid so. Hogsmeade is the only town in Britain that's inhabited by wizards only – perfect for Death Eaters to hit the wizarding world there. Imagine the outcry if they ransacked that place! Hogwarts has protections of its own, but it wouldn't hurt keeping an eye on it too. Also, Dumbledore has insisted on letting the students have their Hogsmeade trips, so I'm sending you four on a babysitting trip as well." He smiled a little wryly: keeping an eye on children was not what the Aurors were for.

"I see. When am I supposed to leave?"

"As soon as possible. I want to have that station operational before the first of August, not later, so that you'll be fully adjusted when the school year begins. There's been arranged housing and a Headquarters for you, and Rosmerta has agreed to give you three meals a day; it will be paid for by the Ministry. The job itself probably won't be too risky or even eventful: all you have to do is patrol the village, the outskirts, the station and the way leading up to the Hogwarts grounds. The grounds itself are taken care of by Dumbledore."

"By Hagrid," she muttered.

"Probably." Pendleton had sharper ears than she'd expected. "Any other questions?"

"Not at this moment."

"Good," he nodded. "Then, good luck."

"Thank you."

He showed her out of the door. She walked back down the corridor towards her own cubicle. James was sitting with his feet on his desk, doing absolutely nothing. He hastily grabbed a sheet of parchment when he heard somebody walk in but relaxed when he saw it was her.

"Got chewed out?" he asked interestedly.

"New assignment," she said shortly. She took out a carton box and began packing it with her belongings.

"You're going _away_?" he asked. He sounded suspiciously happy to hear it.

"To Scotland."

"Poor you," he said unconvincingly.

"Yeah. Now I won't be enjoying your company anymore." She made sure that the photographs of her parents and of Sirius were stored away carefully so the glass wouldn't break. She took down her poster and folded it neatly before she put it in the box as well. Next came sheets of parchment she had used as blotting paper, several quills and inkpots, a book she had taken to work ages ago but had forgotten to take home and a pot with a dead and withered plant. Her workplace looked quite dull when she was finished.

Perhaps James thought the same thing, as he looked almost sad when she finally hoisted the box on her hip and said: "goodbye then."

"Yeah, goodbye." He gave a sort of half-wave and that was that.

Perhaps she ought to feel sadder, she thought as she waited for the elevator to arrive. It was her workplace, and she was leaving it for an undecided amount of time. Who knew when she was coming back?

She looked over her shoulder at the cubicles, the people walking in and out of them, the posters and papers and the noise above all. Would she miss that?

_No_, she decided. Perhaps if Kingsley had still been there. If the Department of Mysteries hadn't been right under her feet, several floors below. If Umbridge wasn't walking around in this building, and Remus' brother (even though he didn't resemble his brother that much), and if she hadn't been working for the Order of the Phoenix. But as it were, she welcomed the change of scenery and society. Perhaps it would do her good.

_It probably can't get much worse anyway_, she thought, stepping into the elevator and watching the grill slide shut.

Yes, Hogsmeade might very well have come at just the right time.

* * *

"Did you ever had that sinking feeling in your stomach, that you had to do something and you _knew_ it had to be done, but you'd rather jump off a cliff than actually do it?" Remus asked.

"Yeah," Romulus said. "When I proposed to Julia."

Remus stared at his brother. "That is absolutely not the same thing."

"Perhaps. But it felt as terrifying. You propose to a woman and tell me what it feels like."

Remus now shot his brother a cold glare, which Romulus took in rather calmly. Remus shook his head and rang the doorbell.

"I was already wondering whether you were coming in or staying outside having strange conversations," their mother said when she opened the door. "Why did you ring the doorbell anyway? You both have a key."

"You know Remus is scarily polite," Romulus said, as he kissed his mother hello.

"Yes, I do," she said.

"Sure, blame me," Remus said, pretending to be hurt.

"Of course. You're such an easy target for that."

Mrs Lupin gestured for her sons to come inside. Their father was sitting in the living room. The greetings were being repeated, tea was being served, and everybody sat down. Then followed a pleasant conversation, mainly between Mr Lupin and Romulus. Mrs Lupin was watching the scene with an expression on her face as if she thoroughly enjoyed having the four of them together, and so unexpectedly too. Remus sat back, quietly waiting for an opening to begin asking questions, and hoping that opening would never come. He had to smile a bit wryly at himself: some spy he'd make if he didn't even have the guts to question his own parents. He tried to imagine how Snape would handle these kinds of things. He had a sneaking suspicion Snape had a way of making people talk – with or without Unforgivable curses.

Just now, he wished this conversation could go on endlessly. They could talk about nothing and nobody would mind, nobody would be the worse for it. He most wished that nobody, least of all himself, had an obligation to change the subject.

"You're being awfully quiet today, Remus," his mother commented. "Sometimes I do wonder what's going on inside your head."

"She used to wonder that when you were but two years old," Mr Lupin smiled. "It's nothing new."

"Actually, Remus suggested us coming here," Romulus announced.

Both parents beamed at that. "Did he?" Mrs Lupin said.

"Yeah, I did," Remus said with more ease than he would have thought he would have. "I, err, I had a few questions actually."

"And here I'd hoped you just wanted to see us," his mother smiled. "What are your questions about?"

"Fenrir Greyback."

Remus immediately realised that this was a far tenderer subject than he had initially supposed. Both his parents blanched; his mother pressed her lips together in a furious, defensive expression and his father seemed to withdraw inside himself, ready to hide. Remus exchanged worried glances with his brother, who had noticed the same thing.

"Who told you?" Mrs Lupin said softly.

"Told me?" Remus repeated. "Told me what?"

"Why do you want to know… things about Greyback?" she asked, sounding accusing and slightly panicked. "Who told you?"

"Nobody!" Remus said. "I haven't been told anything by anybody. I just… I was at Azkaban a few days ago, long story, but a… a werewolf told me, well, hinted more, actually, and – "

"Why were you at Azkaban?" His mother's voice had begun to sound more and shriller. It was alarming to Remus – he hadn't expected to hit upon the family secret this quickly.

"I needed to find out the whereabouts of Greyback, and I thought that man could help me," he explained. "But he wouldn't talk – "

"Why do you need to know his whereabouts?"

For a moment, Remus had the totally impossible suspicion that his parents were actually in league with Fenrir Greyback and were in fact hiding the most feared werewolf of the United Kingdom in their basement. He realised the implausibility of this suspicion when he saw the fear on his parents' faces.

"I was asked to," he said quietly. "I have to know where he is, I'm supposed to keep an eye on him, infiltrate his group, spy on him…"

"This is Albus Dumbledore's idea, isn't it?" Mrs Lupin said through clenched teeth. "I should have known. Only he could come up with something like this. Has he _no_ regard for the feelings of the people he uses?"

"Mum –!" Remus tried to interrupt.

"Don't _'Mum' _me," she snapped. "It's insulting. He comes barging in, asking impossible things of people. Doesn't he realise what _we _might think of things?" She angrily got up and made a frustrated gesture at the wall. Further ranting, however, was interrupted by her husband.

"That will do, Eliza," Mr Lupin said quietly. "Please calm down?"

She glared at him but kept quiet. Remus gave his father a curious look, but Mr Lupin made sure never to look his eldest son directly in the face. It gave him a very guilty appearance, which worried Remus even more.

"I suppose you would have found out eventually," Mr Lupin muttered. "It's just that neither of us had expected it to go like this."

Mrs Lupin looked as though she was ready to put all the blame on Dumbledore again, but she was able to restrain herself with great effort.

"You see, Remus," continued Mr Lupin quietly, "I don't think any of us would be sitting right here in this very situation were it not for Fenrir Greyback." He flinched slightly and added in an undertone, almost too soft to hear. "Or me, for that matter."

Remus was about to ask jokingly if his father was suggesting that he was really Greyback's bastard son who was adopted by the Lupins, but something made him hold back. Perhaps it was the feeling that the truth about _something_, he didn't even know what,was inevitably approaching. And when it did come, he barely even heard it at first.

"The truth is, Fenrir Greyback turned you into a werewolf. He was the one who bit you."

Remus heard himself say "excuse me?" before he had even made the conscious decision to say that. His mind immediately whirred on with his inner Sirius commenting that such a thing was something only over-polite people like Remus would say; Sirius would personally go for "what the fucking hell?" It took a few moments before Remus had caught up with his brain again. Funny that pain always seemed to take a while to hit – but when it did, it hit hard.

"_What_?" he asked. His father didn't just say that. Obviously he misheard.

"Greyback was the werewolf who bit you more than thirty years ago," Mr Lupin repeated, confirming Remus' worst suspicions.

Remus stared at his father, who now looked back for the first time since they had begun this conversation. The clear, apologetic look on his father's face sealed the deal: it was true. It was no fabrication, no cruel lie. Remus _was_, in a way, Fenrir Greyback's bastard son. The knowledge was nearly too much to bear.

"Excuse me," he said, jumping to his feet. "I just need…" He made an empty gesture with his hand, not knowing what he wanted to say. Abandoning all attempts when he saw his family looking at him – his mother with tears in his eyes, his father apologetic, almost ashamed, and Romulus about as shocked as Remus felt – he retreated into the kitchen. He leaned over the sink, trying to comprehend what he had just heard.

_Hell, how do you comprehend something like this anyway? _

Fenrir Greyback had bitten him. It was his fault. All those years of alienation, torturous pain, loneliness, the constant feeling of being _different_ were all Greyback's fault. He clenched his fists, then unclenched them again to look at his hands, the index finger the same length as the middle finger: the sign of a werewolf. That too was Greyback's fault, as was the fact that Remus was the only one in his family who didn't have brown eyes, the fact that his eyebrows met in the middle, the fact that he had to shave more often than was practical, the fact that his entire body was covered in scars, the worse being his leg where he was bitten thirty years ago, when he was just a little kid.

_Fenrir Greyback did that. The most feared werewolf alive. _

He had heard stories of Greyback's actions, of course – it was hard not to. But for the first time, Remus directly related them to himself. For the first time, he really felt like it _could_ have been him who was mauled, half eaten alive, kidnapped and never seen again. For most of his life, he had convinced himself that while Greyback was obviously the worst kind of werewolf you could find, he himself was self-contained, controlled, normal. Greyback was an abomination, something completely unrelated to him. But not anymore.

_Fenrir Greyback bit me._

The confession was made all the worse by the fact that, for about two years, Remus had believed himself to be bitten by somebody else. A werewolf named Wulf Talbot had been pointed out to him as his _alpha_, his werewolf-father so to speak. And while that man hadn't been very pleasant, it paled in comparison with the truth. It felt like being adopted and finding a man who you were told was your father, only to find out it was a mistake and your _real _father was much, much worse because he didn't just get into fights with others, he ate the people he won the fight from.

_Fenrir Greyback. _

"It's my fault."

Remus raised his head abruptly when he heard his father's voice behind him. He could see his father reflected in the window above the sink; Mr Lupin was standing in the doorway, hesitant to approach Remus.

"It's my fault," he repeated. "If I hadn't been so stupid…"

Remus said nothing, just looked at his father, feeling strangely distant but at the same time wanting to know more.

"You have no idea how often I have wished I could take everything I said back," his father continued. "It happened in a moment, I hardly even paid any attention to it. At the Ministry. Greyback was much younger then – obviously – and he still visited wizarding places. He wasn't as infamous as he is now." He paused for a moment; when he didn't get a reaction he continued. "It was something I said, a careless comment that had hit harder than I had thought. I was stupid – like so many people, I thought werewolves were second- or even third-grade wizards, barely worthy of notice, just something to be feared. Monsters." He swallowed heavily. "I was young and cocky. Of course I was, I had it made; I had a wife I loved and who loved me, I had two young children, a steady job with good career perspectives, a good home. And Greyback had nothing except the clothes on his back." He smiled wryly. "And even those were probably second-hand."

Remus saw, reflected in the window, that his mother had approached his father, embracing him from behind. Her head rested on his shoulder in a silent gesture of support.

"I was working at the International Magical Cooperation Office then. Nothing too fanciful, barely more than a secretary, but with a possibility to climb up to Ministry Official, maybe even diplomat or something. I dreamed of living abroad, seeing the world. I was going to take you all with me." Again the wry smile. "There was no end to my fantasies: we would live in France and when we got back to England you and Romulus would make girls swoon with your French. Or maybe Italy and we would visit Rome, Milan, Venice and absorb the culture. In Africa you would play with the animals. In India you would run around barefoot and learn to respect cows. The dreams of a young man, a young father. Then, one day..." Mr Lupin had a pained expression on his face. "One day, I got out of the elevator. One of those stupid, common, everyday things. What I hadn't seen, however, was the man waiting to get in. He hadn't seen me either, so we crashed into each other rather forcefully. He nearly got me off my feet, in fact. My colleague just managed to catch me and straighten me up again. Now, when I said that Greyback's clothes probably were second-hand – he looked like they were third-hand or even older. There was no real werewolf support to speak of in these days, so I have no idea how he got by. He looked like a vagabond at any rate. Not somebody you would commonly see at the Ministry of Magic. So…" He hesitated. "Naturally… I pulled up my nose at him. I said something disparagingly, I can't even remember what it was exactly. Something about allowing homeless drunks in the building and couldn't he keep his eyes open. He didn't even react to me, actually. When we had run into each other, the papers he had been holding had fallen onto the floor and he was busy picking them up. That's when I saw the Werewolf Registry logo."

Remus turned around. He had a feeling where this was going, he only needed his father to proof him right. "What did you do?"

Mr Lupin made a shameful gesture with his hand. "What anybody would probably do in that situation," he said wryly. "I jumped to the right conclusion and commented to my colleague – not to Greyback, mind, as he was, as a werewolf, obviously not worth talking to in my foolish mind – that it was a disgrace that the Ministry let dangerous half-animals into the building unguarded. They shouldn't be helped, they should be caught and imprisoned. Of course my colleague agreed with me. As we walked away from the elevator, not once acknowledging Greyback, I delivered the kicker: I straightened my robes and said something to the effect of 'I need to wash these robes now; he touched me and I bet he has lice, filthy animal'. No doubt Greyback heard that. And nobody defended him or even acknowledged he was standing there. He was a pariah, and I had forcefully pressed his nose onto that fact." He sighed. "Funny, really, how much pain you can deliver in such a short moment."

"And then?"

"He took his time. I can only guess how it went, but I think he sort of began to see me as a representative of the common opinion. Maybe he had had a bad day and my comments had been the final straw, so _I _had to be punished. Or maybe he had a habit of taking revenge on everybody who had wronged him, I don't know. Either way, he had singled me out. He began to track me, find out information about me, what I did for my job, where I lived, who I lived with. He was clever enough never to let me notice he was tracking me. And sad to say, he could have been much more careless because I probably wouldn't have given any importance to him anyway. The thought of him taking revenge just didn't occur to me. And so, six months later…" He swallowed. The sentence remained unended, but everybody knew what he had intended to say.

"Your oldest son," Remus said, his voice slightly hoarse but steady. "Five and a half. Old enough to have a small chance of survival, young enough to be practically defenceless."

"I don't think he cared whether you lived or died," his father said quietly. "Either option was good. The point was to get back at me, and this was the cruelest place to hit me."

"Sometimes I wonder if… he, Greyback, had hoped we would abandon you if you survived," Remus' mother continued the story. "Maybe he would have taken you in, the son of the man who had offended him an outcast just like himself. But he hadn't counted on how much we loved you, that we would try and make a life for you no matter what. We couldn't abandon you." Mrs Lupin sounded proud when she said this; she had fought for her child against prejudice and hardship and protected him no matter what other people said.

"It certainly taught us that werewolves aren't as bad as we had thought they were," her husband added with a wry smile. At least, not all of them. I could hate, or at least be violently indifferent, to werewolves in general. I could _not _do that to you. Perhaps Greyback had expected me to react the same way to you as I had to him, but I loved you too much already to do that…" He cleared his throat, suddenly emotional. "Either way… Afterwards, our ambitions had to be toned down. The laws to do with werewolves were severely limiting – still are, actually. There was no way I was now going to be able to work abroad, as other countries wouldn't accept someone with a werewolf as a child. I switched jobs, also to afford experimental potions and the like and other things you needed. Your mother tried to adjust at home, making you comfortable with your new life as much as possible. There was the matter of your education, of course, which was thankfully solved when Dumbledore accepted you. I don't think there is a detail of your life we didn't worry over and tried to solve or at least anticipate for you. Of course, there's no predicting children, and you had quite a mind of your own. Your antics at school with your friends had us worried sick, especially all those times Sirius and James made you do stupid things that could bring you in danger." Mr Lupin made an apologetic gesture towards Romulus. "Even without those two, I don't think we worried half as much about you, and I sometimes fear we quite neglected you."

Romulus hastily muttered something about it being completely understandable and not a big deal.

Mr Lupin turned back to Remus. "So now you know," he said simply. "That is everything we know about Fenrir Greyback. These days, we try not to pay too much attention to him as his influence on our lives has been far too great anyway. Other than the things I just told you, we don't know anything about him."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Remus asked, the only question he could think of now.

"We were ashamed," was the honest answer. "You didn't seem to want to know and we didn't want to stir up things we wanted to forget so we were more than happy with your apparent disinterest."

"Does… who else knows?"

"Other than us, nobody. That may explain this… assignment you got. I like to think Dumbledore wouldn't be so heartless to send you to the very person who turned you into a werewolf in the first place." Mrs Lupin looked sceptically at her husband at this, but he ignored her look.

"But then… how do you know it was Greyback who did this?" Remus asked. "I was told, by the Werewolf Registry in fact, that it was someone completely different! I _believed _that it was!"

"For a long time, we didn't know either. The Werewolf Registry, as much good as it has done – or tries to at any rate, sorry Romulus – is fallible. I don't know how they identify guilty werewolves – "

"Guesswork, mainly," Romulus cut in. "We got everybody's name and address registered so when there's been an attack we compare locations with the list of addresses we have. Most werewolves aren't so clever to move to the other side of the country during the full moon, so usually the 'wolf closest to the attack did it. I suppose something similar happened in this case as well. Nobody would have expected a werewolf to actually go to his prey and attack it. Werewolves don't premeditate – usually anyway."

"This one did, and does. The werewolf who bit you got away and there was no real suspect to point to, so we had no one to blame. In fact, I'm a bit surprised the Registry managed to point one out after so long a time. Either way," Mr Lupin said dismissively, "you were about eight when we started to notice that the attacks we sometimes read about in the _Daily Prophet_ were curiously similar to yours. A person, usually a child, attacked by a mysterious, unknown werewolf, sometimes in areas where there wasn't a werewolf around for miles. The children were all around the same age, ranging from about five to seven years old. And the attacks were usually single events, not recurring."

"We were certain it was Greyback when he had done his first big revenge attack," Mrs Lupin said. "He was getting more and more infamous. One day, a man working at the Magical Animal Department had slighted him in some way. I think he had refused to do Greyback a favour – in this case just an ordinary common courtesy Greyback didn't get because he was a werewolf. I forgot what it was. Greyback warned the man, threatening to do something to him. He was again refused, and a few months later one of the man's daughters – one of twins I believe – disappeared. It was all over the newspapers, especially since this coincided with the first freak killings done by Death Eaters. Nobody knew what was going on. A year later, the girl's mutilated remains were found, clearly mangled by a werewolf. Two and two were put together and Greyback was accused as being the attacker. He couldn't be found, he had hidden himself somewhere, but his picture was all over the newspapers. That's when we realised how narrowly we had escaped the same thing."

"And you didn't tell anybody?"

"We had no proof," she explained. "And we felt… bad about showing up with you, still alive, when so many children had been killed. It was wrong, I know, but at that time it felt like the best thing to do."

"I understand," Remus said. He wasn't sure he really did – it was a situation so extreme he nearly had trouble imagining it – but the statement reassured his parents.

"We're sorry we didn't tell you earlier," his mother said softly. "We should have."

"It's alright," he said soothingly. He actually wanted this conversation to end now. He had heard so much in the past half hour, he would have to take days to let it all sink in. "At least now I know."

His parents smiled at him, a little hesitantly but comforted. "Will you be alright?" his mother asked.

"I think so," he said. _In due time_, he added mentally. _I hope. _

* * *

Remus wasn't there.

Peculiar how one can see how somebody is _not _there; it would be more accurate to say that one is actually seeing everybody else but the person one wants to see, but Tonks didn't stop to think about things like that because Remus wasn't there.

Apart from Remus, who after all wasn't there, the entire Order of the Phoenix was once again crammed in the Weasley's sitting room. As the meeting hadn't started yet, there was a low buzzing due to the talking of over thirty people.

"Where is he?" she muttered. She berated herself for worrying over a person she was trying not to care for but she couldn't help it.

"Who?" Kingsley asked. He was, as always, sitting besides her. He looked rather odd in his Muggle suit; she was so used to him dressed in robes. He had had no time to change clothes before coming to the meeting as he made long days at Downing Street 10.

"Oh, just… never mind," Tonks said, feeling a bit ashamed.

"You know Dumbledore isn't coming tonight, right?" Kingsley asked, acting as though he didn't know who Tonks referred to.

"Of course I do. He's gone to do something," Tonks replied.

"But I don't know where Remus is either," Kingsley went on. Tonks gave him a quick look, then turned her face away, blushing furiously at letting her feelings known so easily.

"Well, I was just wondering about that," she said avoidantly.

"I thought you were, ah, seeing him? In ways that I'm not seeing him in?" Kingsley asked.

"Apart from that being none of _your _business," Tonks said, "maybe I'm not."

Kingsley gave her a long, thoughtful look. After a while, it made her feel uncomfortable and she looked away, scanning the room once more but pretending not to. _Thank Merlin for Auror-taught practice at that_.

Finally, Kingsley said: "listen, you are careful with this, aren't you? I mean..." He suddenly seemed a bit embarrassed; it was hardly usual for them to talk about these things. "Just don't let yourself… get hurt."

She smiled at him, feeling just as embarrassed but grateful nonetheless for his concern. "I won't. Thanks."

He returned the smile. "You're welcome."

Further conversation was prevented by Minerva McGonagall, who had got to her feet and now called for silence. With Dumbledore not there to lead the meetings, other Order members took turns leading. McGonagall had volunteered to take care of tonight's meeting. She was so experienced at keeping a large group of people quiet that the meeting had begun before people really noticed it. Also, Tonks suddenly felt as if she was back at Hogwarts again: McGonagall couldn't help but run the meeting like she was running a Transfiguration class. Kingsley actually whispered to Tonks whether he should raise his hand if he wanted to ask a question. Tonks giggled and then felt guilty for giggling in McGonagall's class. Meeting. Whatever. _As long as she doesn't start giving out detentions._

An Order meeting without Dumbledore always felt a bit hollow. The Hogwarts Headmaster really was the person who tied the Order together, as he had founded it and had told most people what they were supposed to do. Reporting your findings and achievements to somebody else felt rather useless: what did that other person care about what you were doing for Dumbledore?

McGonagall made the best of it, however, and managed to get the whole thing done in forty-five minutes. A record for the Order. The members didn't really mind: it was nice to be home early for once, so most people left quickly.

"I'll see you next time?" Kingsley asked Tonks.

"I suppose so," she said. "I might not come, though. I'm leaving for Scotland tomorrow and I don't know if I'll be able to leave without attracting attention."

"Who're you staying with?"

"Proudfoot, Savage and Dawlish."

"Shouldn't be too difficult," Kingsley said confidently. "They're competent but not really obsessed with their jobs. It won't be like staying with Moody."

"Thank Merlin it isn't," Tonks smiled. "That would be a nightmare."

"Be glad you never had the pleasure of training under him," Kingsley said. "Trust me when I say it wasn't nice."

"How did you _survive_?" Tonks said in mock-terror. "I bet he threatened to cast the Killing Curse on one of you to show what it was like."

"Actually, he would have like to but realised just in time that it would be rather, err, counter-productive," Kingsley said with a smile. "Good thing too, really."

"Yeah, else we'd have about half the number of Aurors we have now."

"Which would current things _very _difficult."

"Exactly. "

"Thankfully," Kingsley cut the sentence-adding off, "that never happened. Listen, I'm really tired: I spend most of my day explaining to _other_ people, Muggles, how their computer works. I'm a wizard, I shouldn't even know how my own computer works. I need sleep. I'll see you next time?"

"I'll try my best to be there," Tonks promised. "See you next time."

"Take care."

She gave a little wave as goodbye. Then, when he was gone, she wondered what she was going to do now. Go home? Go to bed early with a book and a mug of tea?

The decision was made for her. Molly Weasley approached her and practically _commanded _her to stay and drink something. As going home didn't seem such a nice alternative anyway, Tonks took this opportunity readily. However, five minutes later she found herself wondering if staying had been such a good idea after all.

_Fleur _was there.

Well, she would be, as she was Bill's fiancée and the pair were practically inseparable these days. And Fleur stayed at the Weasleys at the moment, so running into her was pretty much inevitable either way. But that didn't mean her company was enjoyable.

The problem wasn't so much that Fleur was an insufferable person. Tonks was sure that the girl had her merits and could be a good friend. After all, Bill couldn't be _entirely _led by his hormones, could he? She was surely a kind, intelligent girl who had more to her than her looks. The thing was simply that beautiful, elegant French Fleur couldn't be more different from Tonks if she tried. And, of course, that Molly seemed to prefer Tonks over Fleur, so that every time the three women found themselves in the same room you could cut the tension with a knife.

"Would you like some sugar in your tea, Fleur?" Molly asked. The polite tone of her voice seemed stacked-on at the last moment.

"Ah, _non_, thank you," Fleur said sweetly. "I shouldn't have too much sugar. Eet gives me – what ies the word? Cavités."

"Cavities," Bill corrected the heavy French accent with a grin. Tonks personally thought Fleur couldn't get cavities in her perfect teeth if she tried, but she didn't voice that thought. Instead, she did accept the offered sugar bowl and added three large spoonfuls of sugar to her tea. Molly beamed at her: the difference between Fleur alone was enough to make her like Tonks.

"So, how's Kingsley doing?" Bill asked. The Auror's job at the office of the Muggle Prime Minister was a constant source of amusement for the wizards.

"Pretty good, actually," Tonks said. "He told me that he had to explain to Muggles how their computer worked."

"Which is…?" Ron asked, looking at Hermione, who predictably went into explaining-mode. Tonks didn't much participate in the following conversations, which was mainly about Muggle machines and their uses. She had her hands clamped around the mug of steaming tea and her shoulders drawn up. _Just let nobody pay attention to me, I'll be fine_.

There was, however, no escaping Molly's sharp eyes. "Are you alright?" she asked as she refilled Tonks' mug.

"Yeah, sure." This time she didn't add quite as much sugar; Fleur might be immune to cavities, but Tonks' dentist could attest to the fact that _she_ wasn't.

"What's with the new hair?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Hm? Oh, this." Tonks tugged her hair, pretending to be surprised that it was brown, as if she hadn't been both worried over and annoying by it herself. "Well, it's… new."

"Different," Ginny said, wrinkling her nose a bit; she didn't like it.

"We can't _all _have red hair," Hermione pointed out mock-snappish, then laughed.

"Nothing wrong with red," Ginny replied in the same tone.

"I am glad I don't have _brune _'air," Fleur commented. "Eet isn't ugly, but eet would not go well with my face, I think." She flipped her long, thick, white-blonde hair over her shoulder to show. Tonks wanted to scream.

"Yes, that would be a problem," Molly said icily.

The conversation came to a screeching halt as the two women, future mother- and daughter-in-law were glaring at one another. If there was a difference between Tonks and Fleur, it was much bigger between Fleur and Molly. Molly resented Fleur for being strange and French and 'stuck-up' and snatching her baby Bill away; Fleur had wanted to like Molly but was constantly deflected by Molly's cold behaviour.

"I'm going for a walk," Bill announced hurriedly. "Fleur, you coming?"

"This late?" Molly asked.

"We won't go far," Bill promised. "Just a noseful of fresh air."

"Fresh fog," Ginny muttered. Nobody paid attention to her comment, however. Bill helped Fleur into her coat, a courtesy Molly seemed to think she didn't deserve, and the two of them went outside. There was silence in the kitchen after they'd left.

"Maybe we should go to bed," Hermione suggested quietly.

"Maybe we should," Ginny said after a look at her mother. Molly was seething slightly as she glared at the door Bill and Fleur had left through. "Come on, Ron."

The three got to their feet. After a goodbye ("bye, Tonks", "g'night", "see you later, Tonks") they left the kitchen, leaving Tonks alone with Molly. The two women listened in silence to the three teens going up the stairs. When everything had gone quiet again, Tonks said: "perhaps I should go too."

"No, dear, no, stay," Molly said, much more warmly than she had spoken all evening. "Here, have another mug of tea."

"Thanks." Tonks took the steaming mug and blew in it, savouring the warmth. She suddenly found herself touched by Molly's kindness. They had met only the year before, they were related but only by with the most distant ties. Molly really had no real reason to be so nice to her.

"I do hope they're careful," Molly said. Tonks guessed correctly she was referring to Bill and Fleur, but she wasn't sure if Molly meant their trip outside or something quite different altogether.

"I'm sure they are," she said vaguely. "They're not stupid."

Molly snorted. "Of course they are."

Tonks didn't reply. The whole Molly-Fleur war was, to her, too dangerous territory to get into. She didn't want to take sides anyway and she had enough problems of her own. She momentarily wondered if her own mother would have taken the Molly-approach to Remus if she had shown up with him at her parents' house, then reminded herself that she'd never know because that whole deal was over anyway.

"Are you _quite_ sure you're alright?" Molly asked, giving Tonks a concerned look.

"Yes," Tonks lied. Then, more truthfully: "no." And then, to her own embarrassment, she burst into tears.

The best way to trigger Molly's maternal feelings was to burst into crying. "Oh, _dear_," she said. She quickly walked around the table and took Tonks in a big, warm hug. It had been far too long since anyone had done that to Tonks, and it only made her cry more. It was only minutes later that she pulled herself back, blinking wildly and snorting in a rather disgusting way to get the tears away.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"Don't apologise," Molly said kindly. "There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"There's just been… so much." Tonks vaguely waved her hands in the air to indicate how much it had been. "And it sort of… exploded." She pulled up her nose again.

"That's alright." Molly handed Tonks a handkerchief which she gratefully accepted. "It's been strange weeks, haven't they?"

"Yes, very strange," Tonks agreed. _You have no idea how strange_. Just the thought of it set off the stream of tears again. Molly patted her hand and poured her another mug of tea, adding much sugar.

"Dear, if you want to talk, just know that I'll be there for you," she said warmly.

"But I'll only sound stupid," Tonks blubbered. "And, and you have enough to worry about. I'm sorry I cried, I just had a weak moment." She tried to force the tears back by sheer will-power, then remembered she couldn't even control her own _hair_ so who was she kidding. Will-power, hah.

"You'll never sound stupid," Molly said. She took the mug of tea and folded Tonks' hands around it. "Here. You're stone cold."

"But I will sound stupid," Tonks protested.

"Try me," Molly smiled.

"Well… I've been assigned a job with three people I barely know, and I'm afraid they'll only think I'm weird. And I hate my hair right now. And… and the whole… thing a few weeks ago was my fault but I know it isn't but it actually is." That last bit came out very fast. "And I _told _you it was stupid."

"No, it isn't." Molly took Tonks' hands, which were still holding the mug, in her own hands. "Everybody is afraid when meeting or working with completely new people. They really won't think you're weird. And your hair is just… different. But if you hate it that much, you should really just change it. There's no reason to torment yourself with something as silly as your _hair_. And that last bit… well, I must admit I don't really know what you're referring to but I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"Yes, it was. It was…" Tonks had to press herself to confess it. "If I had taken down Bellatrix Lestrange, she… wouldn't have killed… you know. Sirius."

Molly's eyes widened. "But surely you don't blame yourself for _that_?" she asked.

"Well, not really," Tonks said guiltily – she actually really did.

"Dear, that is… I won't say stupid. It's saddening."

Tonks pulled up her nose noisily. "Pathetic?" she said in a small voice.

"Not pathetic. I would never call you pathetic," Molly said firmly. "But it makes me sad that you think that. It isn't your fault he died and it never was. It was just stupid bad luck that, well, things ended the way they did."

"That's what Remus said," Tonks said somewhat reluctantly.

"See!" Molly said, a slight triumphant tone to her voice: if Remus agreed, it had to be true. "Don't blame yourself for that, dearest."

"But I can't help it," Tonks said. She pulled her hands back. "And it's horrible. I want it to stop. And I actually _can't_ change my hair back because I can't change anymore because I feel so miserable." And to demonstrate just how miserable she was, she burst into crying again. _This is really becoming an annoying habit_, a small voice in her head said, but the larger part of her brain was too busy crying to pay any attention to it.

"Poor dear," Molly murmured sympathetically.

"Yeah," Tonks sniffed in agreement. She _was _a poor dear, and it felt good to have somebody agree with that.

"But you said you talked to Remus about this?"

"Tons of times," Tonks said. She wondered if she wanted to discuss Remus right now.

"That's good," Molly said warmly. "I'm sure he can help you out."

Tonks wanted to point out that, going by the Tonks-killed-Sirius theory, she actually killed _Remus' best friend_ and that Remus might not be entirely sympathetic about that so the helping-out might not be so great as Molly assumed, but Molly was so sure about Remus' helping-out qualities that Tonks didn't have the heart to protest. The other objections such as the fact that they were at the moment pretending the other person didn't exist she didn't even contemplate bringing up as it would only require more explaining that she was willing to do.

"Yes, I'll do that," she therefore said. Molly beamed at her.

"Good," she repeated. "Everything will be alright. Trust me. You have a whole host of people here wanting only the best for you. We're here to help, just ask for it."

"Yeah, well, but – "

The sentence was never completed as the conversation was interrupted by a polite but insistent knocking on the door. Tonks and Molly looked at one another, then at the clock to see the time. It was well past midnight.

"Maybe Bill forgot his key," Molly whispered. She got up and approached the door. Tonks quickly dried her eyes and blew her nose; whoever it was wasn't going to see her in this state. For a moment, she thought she heard hurried footsteps on the stairs, but, she thought, maybe she'd just imagined it. The Weasleys _had_ told her they had a ghoul in their house…

Molly said nervously towards the door: "who's there? Declare yourself!"

A warm, reassuring voice they both recognised replied: "it is I, Dumbledore, bringing Harry."

Molly breathed a sigh of relief and quickly went to open the door. "Harry, dear!" she enthusiastically greeted the boy. "Gracious, Albus, you gave me a fright, you said not to expect you before morning!"

Tonks hadn't expected Harry at all, so she was rather taken by surprise. Both Harry and Dumbledore seemed equally as surprised to see her as well. As Dumbledore ushered (well, half pushed) Harry over the threshold of the Burrow, he only noticed Tonks when he had entered himself.

"We were lucky," he continued his conversation with Molly. "Slughorn proved much more persuadable than I had expected. Harry's doing, of course. Ah, hello, Nymphadora!" He beamed at her.

Tonks flinched only slightly at her first name. She smiled a small smile back. "Hello, Professor. Wotcher, Harry."

Harry looked better than she did, she noticed sadly. Which wasn't very great either way, but it was better. He was pale and looked both tired and alert, but otherwise fine.

"Hi, Tonks," he said, looking curiously at her. Hundreds of questions appeared to run through his mind, questions _she _wasn't going to answer.

She got to her feet. "I'd better be off," she announced. "Thanks for the tea and sympathy, Molly."

"Please don't leave on my account," Dumbledore said courteously. He looked at Molly. "I cannot stay, I have urgent matters to discuss with Rufus Scrimgeour." He looked back at Tonks and smiled warmly at her.

She avoided his eyes, using the fact that she was putting on her cloak as an excuse. "No, no, I need to get going," she said. "Night – " She made for the door.

Molly tried to put a hand on her shoulder. "Dear, why not come to dinner at the weekend, Remus and Mad-Eye are coming –?" She looked sympathetically at Tonks.

"No, really, Molly…" Tonks replied avoidantly. "Thanks anyway… Goodnight, everyone." She went to stand in the Weasley's front garden, purposefully ignoring Molly's concerned look, and Apparated home.


	5. First Steps

FINALLY the next chapter! It seems that I have a two-month posting habit now, instead of two weeks... But hey, I reckon I'll have until next year's summer before the next book is out.

This chapter contains a lot of whining and angsting over stuff. Yay. But at least the plot appears to be going somewhere, unlike the infodump in the previous chapter. The quote heading the chapter is by Kathleen Norris.

Enjoy reading it!

* * *

**July 1996**

"_Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can't. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.__" _

* * *

"Tell me everything there is to know about Fenrir Greyback."

"I told you," Romulus said to his brother, "it's not much." He opened the door to the Werewolf Registry's archive, revealing shelves upon shelves of files.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Not much?"

"Appearances can be deceiving." Romulus walked into the archive, making one sweeping gesture to indicate the entirety of it. "This is actually everything on werewolves the Ministry has registered in the past four centuries. We even have a print of the Werewolf Code of Conduct. Not the original, alas, as it was lost – something involving candles and an unfortunate use of Wingardium Leviosa. But either way, if you're interested in sixteenth century werewolves, this is the place to go."

"No thanks," Remus said. "Only if Greyback was alive back then; he's the only one I'm interested in."

"That limits the search. He's over here." Romulus guided Remus to the part of the archives that was the most cluttered. "This is pretty much everything from the start of the Registry. The information actually doubled in the past fifty years or so that we've been active."

"I'm here too?" Remus asked, curious despite himself.

"Of course you are," Romulus replied. He pointed to a shelf. "Under the L. I'm even there, as your beloved brother. And here, right under the G…" He searched for a moment, then took out a file which seemed ridiculously thin to belong to Fenrir Greyback. "One Greyback, Fenrir."

Remus took the file almost reverentially. "This is it?"

"Can't make anything more of it."

Remus walked to a chair and sat down, already engrossed in the file. It was rather disturbing to see all the paperwork, so incredibly normal. Sheets of the Werewolf Registry filled with a drawn-out scrawl, seeming a bit helpless as though the writer didn't write very often. The questionnaires were answered meticulously and, apparently, faithfully. This was the Fenrir Greyback who abided by the laws, who did as he was told.

Even though the life history of Greyback was nothing short of interesting, Remus couldn't do much with where Greyback used to live. He was more interested in where the man was now. He therefore leafed quickly through the sheets, looking for more helpful information.

"Anything useful?" Romulus asked. He was leaning against a shelf, looking at his brother.

"Not really."

He had barely said it when he turned another page and came upon a sheet neatly labelled '_November 15, 1964_'. It was in a pristine condition, but Remus realised, without even a split-second thinking, that this particular sheet had once ended up on the floor of one of the Ministry's elevators… _Just over six months later, the person who had filled all this in so carefully, would… _He quickly turned the page.

It turned out to have been one of the last few that Greyback had filled in himself. There were two more that were covered with the long scrawl, then Greyback himself disappeared from the file. The questionnaires were replaced by reports which got longer and more gruesome. Remus noticed, a bit interestedly, that there was an almost ten-year hiatus between the last questionnaire and the first report. Greyback's rise had pretty much begun in the same years that Voldemort had begun his reign of terror. Remus wondered how much that had been a coincidence.

"Is this what you were looking for?" Romulus asked.

"Yes and no," Remus answered. He looked the last sheet over – a report with lots of maybes and perhapses as to Greyback's whereabouts – and put it back in the file after deeming it useless. "It's fascinating if I wanted to know his history, but there's nothing in there that could help me in the here and now."

"I know. I asked around here and there – "

Remus gave his brother a surprised look: actual _help_? "Thanks."

"Don't mention it. But Greyback apparently travels around and it's not like he leaves notes after each attack either. Maybe some of those kills attributed to him weren't even done by him."

"So I'm to track somebody who doesn't leave a trail." Remus sighed. "What did I get myself into?"

"Don't make me say 'I told you so'."

"Don't even dare." Remus sighed again and got to his feet. "This isn't helping much either." He put the file back on the shelf, a little rougher than he would have if he hadn't been frustrated. "There's no beginning. What hints do we – sorry, do _I _have? An elusive murderer, likes to eat people, has a following nobody knows how big, used to be good but now isn't…"

"That fellow we met in Azkaban said we should try at Mum and Dad's first," Romulus added. "We did but it's not like we didn't open an even bigger can of worms with it."

"Don't remind me," Remus said glumly.

"He hinted at a _connection_, which by now I think we've got figured out, sadly. And he said that if you wanted to talk to Greyback, you should get word out and he'll find you. The problem is, then, that you need to find other werewolves first. Werewolves who are allied with Greyback – so I doubt you'll find them here at the Registry. Sorry."

"No, I bet Greyback doesn't want people in his group who do what the Ministry tells them to," Remus agreed. "Cooper said to look 'at the fringes and underground'. What do you suppose that means?"

"The fringes of society?" Romulus suggested. "Underground seems fairly obvious to me; Greyback pretty much runs an underground organisation so that's where you have to look."

"The fringes of society," Remus repeated. "Not much help either, really."

Romulus shrugged. "It's the best I can come up with."

"It's not like I can think of anything much better either."

"It's worth a shot, then."

"Exactly." Remus took a last look around the archive. "You know, I think I'm done here."

"Sure about it? You don't want to sneak a peek into your own file?" Romulus smiled.

"I don't see how it would add to my happiness," Remus said, smiling as well. He stepped out of the archive, allowing Romulus to turn off the light and lock the door.

"Yeah, files are overrated," Romulus absent-mindedly agreed as he locked the archive and pocketed the key. The two brothers set off for the elevators.

"So, plans for tonight?" Romulus asked.

Remus sighed despite himself. "Got invited for a dinner."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Romulus said. "Why did you agree if you apparently hate to go?"

"I don't necessarily _hate _to go," Remus said defensively. "I just don't feel much like it."

"Which is basically the same thing," Romulus pointed out.

"Have _you _got any plans?" Remus rudely changed the subject.

"Same as the past fourteen nights or so: stay home with the doors locked." This time, it was Romulus' turn to sigh. "Nerve-wrecking."

Remus gave his younger brother a careful look. "How's Julia under all this?"

"Stressed-out, of course," Romulus replied. "She has two small children and her husband works at the Ministry, it's not exactly as if we hardly run any risk."

"Hmm," Remus said vaguely. He knew the risks. The innocent witch or wizard seemed a favourite target for the Death Eaters.

They waited in silence for a few moments. An elevator arrived, and they got on. Remus pressed the button for the Atrium and they watched the golden grille slide shut. As the elevator begun taking them upstairs, Romulus said: "we do sort of have plans, though."

"Oh?" Remus raised his eyebrows.

"It's not really definitive, but it's beginning to look like it. We're… moving to Wales, taking Mum and Dad with us." Romulus looked at his brother, to see how he would react.

"Why?" Remus asked, honestly surprised. This was something he hadn't expected.

"To get away from London, for one thing," Romulus explained. "And Mum's worried sick about her family – all Muggles after all. Living closer to them would give us a better chance of helping them if necessary. Of course, our dear aunts and uncles actually have no idea – we'll tell them we think the city's a bad place for the children to grow up in and that, now Mum's getting on in years, she wants to live closer to her family. It'd be only half a lie."

"Yeah," Remus said, still a bit taken-aback. "So you're removing yourself from the risk."

"The biggest risk, we hope at least. Of course, I'll still go to my work – it'll take a second Apparating to London. But at least Julia and the children will be safe."

"Do you know where you'll be living?"

"We're looking into houses, but like I said, it's nothing really definitive yet. It's not like loads of people want to sell their house right now, let alone at such short notice." Romulus gave a sort of half-shrug. "But I think it'll work out eventually."

"How're Mum and Dad under it?"

"They think it's a good idea," Romulus said, "mainly because we'll all be closer together now."

"What about _me_?" Remus asked, and he honestly hadn't intended to make the question sound so sad.

"Well…" Romulus begun, but he didn't end the sentence, as if he didn't know how to end it. Remus suspected he could end it for him, however: _"well… you decided to go and risk your life with an illegal resistance group. Unless you want to reconsider that decision, you've cut yourself out of your family for the time being. We want to be safe and to have nothing to do with this war. You've pretty much gone and placed yourself right in the middle of it. _

The elevator got to an abrupt halt when it arrived at Atrium-level. The grille slid open noisily. Apart from that, there was no sound: the Atrium was completely deserted. Not even the Fountain of Magical Brethren was working; it had been repaired after the events a few weeks ago, but what with the most feared Dark wizard being back everybody had just forgotten to turn the fountain back on. Nobody could be bothered anyway.

Remus and Romulus made for the telephone box which took them up to street-level. Remus only spoke again when they were standing on the street, shivering in the cold fog.

"I'll be seeing you?" he said.

"I suppose," Romulus said. "Drop by later this week; I may have some more information then."

"How do I know you haven't gone off to Wales then?" He flinched at his own whiny tone of voice.

"I won't have," Romulus promised. "You'll get a card and everything. And even there, feel free to drop by any time you like. It's just a geographical move, no place you can't reach with Apparating."

"Yes, of course."

The two brothers looked at each other in silence.

"Merlin's beard!" Romulus exclaimed roughly. "We're sounding like two little girls who think they'll never see each other again. Let's act our age and gender for a change."

"We're manly," Remus immediately agreed, taking this chance to get the difficult moment past him with both hands. _As long as this isn't Sirius' and James' forms of 'manly'…_.

"Very much so. I'm not going to hit you on the shoulder, don't worry," Romulus said, seeing the slightly apprehensive look on his brother's face. "_And_ we're British, so we're completely unfazed by all this."

"Absolutely. I'm going home and drink tea."

"Good idea. I'll see you later."

"Good luck with… everything."

"Same to you."

For a moment, both seemed to contemplate hugging the other person but both hesitated at the idea of that intimate a gesture – _it's not like a definite farewell anyway, is it? _both thought – and thought the better of it. Instead, they gave an awkward sort of wave.

"Bye," Romulus said, thinking himself that it sounded rather lame.

"Tell everybody I said hi," Remus answered, just before his brother Disapparated.

_Well, that was that_, he thought. _I wish I could quit this day. Things aren't going as I want them to_. But he couldn't quit. He had more places to go to, more things to do and more people to see.

The last thought before he Apparated to the Weasleys was a very mundane and rather pettish one: _and I hate dinner parties. _

_

* * *

I really hate dinner parties._

Even though it wasn't a _party _in the truest sense of the word, more an excuse for Molly Weasley to stuff Remus, berate him for not eating enough and to flaunt her dislike of Fleur Delacoeur. At least, it seemed that way to Remus, who, after learning that nobody of interest would show up this evening, least of all a particular person who he wasn't interested in seeing in whatever sense of the word, had decided to refuse any enjoyment whatsoever he could get out of the evening.

Molly tried her best to thwart his plans. She had seated him between Bill and Moody, figuring that would make for interesting conversations. She had also cooked up a lavish meal and had managed to wheedle a promise out of him that he would stay some time longer after dinner as well, giving her an opportunity to shower him with more enjoyable things. But try as she might, the only thing he truly couldn't deny he liked was something she had had no hand in: he was glad to see Harry again.

Maybe it was the Sirius in him. Even though his friend hadn't left him anything material, Remus still felt he had inherited something: Sirius' Godson. Now both James and Sirius were gone, Remus was the only one left of the 'old crowd' – the _real _old crowd – to keep an eye on Harry. It was Marauder's honour to look after each other, and that code extended to relatives. Of course, he would never openly show he was keeping an eye on Harry, but he would nonetheless. It was his duty.

He wasn't exactly sure how he had to call the state Harry was in right now. At first glance, the boy was well. He was chatting animatedly with his friends, seeming happy, perhaps even despite circumstances. But then Remus also thought Harry looked paler than he used to, and there seemed to be certain sadness in his eyes the laughter couldn't conceal. In the past weeks, life had knocked Harry about roughed than most people would be in their entire lives, and he was still recovering from it. But there also seemed to be a kind of determination with him, as if he wasn't going to be brought down so easily.

_Ah damnit_, Remus thought when he mulled over these conflicting messages. _I just don't know. He seems to be doing fine, considering things. Maybe I should be happy with that. I wouldn't even know what to do if he was miserable; I'm not his official Godfather anyway. _He scowled, more at himself than at anybody in the room. Everything just seemed a mess which was going nowhere.

Molly served dessert, which in this case was a large pudding. Fleur declined, saying that she was still getting used to English dinners and that she was quite full, thank you. Despite her excuse being offered quite politely, Molly shot her an angry glare while she handed the pudding round. She obviously thought Fleur's comment not just an insult to British cooking in general but to her own cooking in particular.

Remus barely registered this all, wrapped up as he was in his own thoughts. Also, the animosity between Molly and Fleur wasn't something he wanted to get into: when Molly was concerned with an argument, he had learned, it was best to stay out of it altogether. He was therefore taken aback when he looked up and saw Molly look from Fleur to him, her glare seamlessly going from hatred to something he would label suspicious concern. She had a bone to pick with him, he realised. And he doubted it was about food.

He feigned oblivion and gave her a blank look back. But meanwhile, his mind was whirling with reasons why she could be giving him such a look. His first guilty thought was of course that she had found out about him and Tonks, and knowing Molly she would scold him for his behaviour. Then he realised this was ridiculous as she hadn't seen them together in ages – well, at least a week. After this comforting thought, he tried to figure out how he and Fleur connected in such a way that they both deserved such looks, but he couldn't think of any reason that made sense. He would have to wait for Molly to explain herself.

She didn't appear to be in a hurry to do so. After the pudding had been eaten by everybody but Fleur and Alastor Moody (he didn't trust anything that contained vanilla), she ordered the children around to clean up, much to mainly Ginny's chagrin. Fleur offered her help, but this was accepted only grudgingly: Molly would rather keep her future daughter-in-law out of any kind of housekeeping whatsoever.

Remus was actually glad with this moment respite he got offered, because it enabled him to spend some more time with Harry. The boy had sat down at the table again, having been shooed out of the kitchen because there were too many people walking around there. He was looking at his friends with an amused smile on his face. _As if he thinks them slightly ridiculous in all their ordinariness_, Remus thought. _But touched at the same time, really. _

"Come on Harry," Bill butted in. "Shouldn't you be helping?"

Harry looked at Ron's older brother and laughed. "Nah," he said. "I'll only be in the way. Besides, it looks like Ron is much better at these kinds of things." Molly appeared to disagree, as she was right at that moment scolding Ron for drying the dishes the wrong way. Ron scowled but said nothing, his slightly red ears showing his annoyance.

"Shouldn't _you _be helping?" Harry asked of Bill. Bill grinned in reply and leaned far back on his chair.

"Not as much fun," he said. "I'm allowed to do magic, so she can't harass me and make me do it the bothersome way."

"The Muggle way," Harry said.

"Exactly."

A towel was slammed on the table as Ron joined his friend. His mother had kicked him out of the kitchen for not cooperating.

"I'll only be a few months though," he said with an air of grim satisfaction: he had obviously heard the last few words of the conversation. "Then I'll be seventeen."

"Less than three for Hermione," Harry pointed out.

"More than a year for you," Ron said, and this time he sounded positively gleeful – though he tried to hide it.

"Yes, yes, rub it in," Harry mock-scowled. "I'm the baby here, I know."

"If it helps, you were adorable when you were a baby," Remus couldn't help but butt in, grinning a bit meanly. A beat while the other three let these words and just who was saying them sink in, then Ron burst into rather hysterical laughter at the mental image of Harry as a tiny little baby on Professor Lupin's lap. He tried to force it back but was having a hard time at it.

"Sorry," he chocked. "Sorry mate."

"Yeah," Harry said with a sour smile. "Sure." He thumped Ron on the back rather harder than was necessary.

"What's going on here?" Molly interrupted, emerging from the kitchen with a tray with a steaming teapot and several teacups on it.

"Ron choked," Harry explained, "so I'm helping him."

"By breaking his ribs?" Ginny asked as she plopped down on a chair. "Remind me never to ask you to help me."

"What did you choke on now?" Molly asked exasperatedly.

"Nothing!" protested Ron. "Just something stupid prof… Lupin said." The quick correction was a reaction to Hermione, who had opened her mouth, undoubtedly to remind Ron that Remus wasn't their professor anymore and therefore couldn't be called _Professor _Lupin.

"I'm sure it wasn't _stupid_," Molly said rather sharply. While talking, she routinely poured everybody tea.

"Well it _was _rather amusing," Bill said.

"Yeah," said Harry. "Let's not repeat it." This comment earned him a round of laughter.

"So it was about you then?" Hermione said wisely.

"No," Harry said, too quickly.

"Only that Harry was so _adorable_ as a baby," Bill said loudly and gleefully.

"_Aww_," Ginny cooed. At this, Harry could only raise his arms in mock-victory.

"I bet your hair stuck up then just as it does now," Ginny teased.

"It did, actually," Remus revealed, making the people around the table erupt in laughter again. It was an endeared sort of laughter, however.

"Gee, thanks," Harry told him sourly.

It suddenly occurred to Remus that perhaps now was not the time Harry wanted to hear these kinds of things, in this place, with these people, at this age. He could vividly remember being wildly embarrassed himself every time his own mother decided to take out the baby pictures again. And even though he might feel like he inherited a Godson from Sirius, he doubted Harry felt he inherited a Godfather: that was Sirius' special position. Perhaps it wasn't his place to discuss Harry's baby years.

Thankfully, Harry had already decided himself to switch the subject and he had cleverly managed to turn it to Ron's baby years, which Molly was all too happy to discuss – much to Ron's annoyance. And so the evening turned out rather pleasant after all. Molly told touching stories of little redheaded children and their antics, Moody's gruff suggestions of what _he _would have done had he found a child in the top of a tree with a broomstick clutched in its hand, too afraid too come down, Fleur made a few comments which didn't anger Molly, much to everybody else's relief, Ginny attempted a few times to change the subject back to Harry, to which he always pulled a face, and Remus was sure that in the midst of all these Little Ron tales he could see Hermione's heart melt.

All in all, it was not the worst kind of way to spend an evening actually.

* * *

Of course, he had quite forgotten about the bone Molly had to pick with him. He was only reminded of it when he was fastening his cloak, ready to leave, and saw Molly making a bee-line for him, a determined look on her face.

"Remus, dear," she whispered so the others wouldn't hear, "could I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure," he said.

"Thank you."

She led him to the living room, which was now completely deserted and dark. Molly lit a few lamps, which actually only made the unlit parts of the room seem darker. She motioned for Remus to take a seat, but he remained standing.

Molly had apparently decided not to beat around the bush as she immediately announced what this was all about. "It's about Tonks," she said.

"Oh," he said. _Oh no_, he thought. Now he was in for it: he wouldn't put it past Molly to scold him, drag him to Tonks by the scruff of his neck and then order them to make it up.

"I worry about her," Molly continued, quite oblivious of his thoughts. "I really don't think she's alright."

"Why do you think that?" A very unsuspicious question, asked in the tiny hope that this wasn't about what he thought it was.

"I had a talk with her last night, and the poor dear cried her heart out here." Molly looked as sympathetic as if Tonks was her own daughter. "Do you know she blames herself for Sirius' death? Poor thing."

Remus blinked. _Well, this is unexpected. _"Err, yes," he said, still trying to get over his surprise. "I heard. I mean, she told me."

"Yes, she said she did. But I wanted to talk to you about it, just to be sure. I mean, it's probably not my place to, eh, interfere here, but – "

"No, I appreciate your concern," Remus said quickly. "Thank you."

"No, not at all," Molly said, touched. "But I do worry about her. I wouldn't want her to get sick over something so tragic she really couldn't help."

"Well, I explained that to her," he said. "I told her exactly that, that she couldn't help it. I mean, I think… that's what troubles her I think. She thinks that had she fought harder or just… done more, Sirius would have lived."

"Yes, indeed," agreed Molly, nodding. "She told me that as well, and I told her the same thing you did."

"It's a kind of guilt I think," Remus continued pensively. "That she survived and he didn't."

"That sounds plausible," Molly said. She sighed. "Poor child. Well, I just wanted to know whether you knew. I trust you'll continue to support her? It's just what she needs right now."

"Yes, of course," Remus lied, feeling like a right bastard.

"Thank you," Molly said warmly.

"Really, don't mention it."

To make things worse, Molly mistook his shame for modesty. She took him by the arm and gave him an affectionate squeeze. "I don't know what she would do without you," she said.

"Err, thank you…" This time his discomfort _was _noticeable, and she let go of him. He said goodbye and made to leave as quickly as possible. As he took one last look at Molly's hopeful face, he couldn't help but think: _I'm going to be on so many people's hit-lists once the truth gets out… _

* * *

"What's the point of escalators when they're broken all the time?"

"Exercise," Kingsley replied more cheerfully than was probably appropriate to the situation. The tall Auror quickly descended the motionless escalator, followed by a rather slower Remus. It wasn't the first time that Kingsley had made Remus feel jealous of his physical condition.

"You know, you could just Apparate," Kingsley said to Remus when the latter had finally reached the bottom of the escalators. "_You _don't have to keep up any pretence for your Muggle colleagues."

"Nah. The Tube is more fun."

They walked leisurely to the platform for the Circle line, which Kingsley had to take to get to Downing Street Ten. He had made a habit of taking the London Underground to his work, to seem even more Muggle: appearing out of thin air does seem a little suspicious after all. Although, sometimes Remus had the feeling that was only half the reason; the other reason was simply because Kingsley enjoyed it.

An Underground train raced past the platform opposite theirs. The noise the train made was enormous. Bits of newspaper flew after it in the current as it disappeared in the dark tunnel.

The platform slowly filled with other commuters waiting for the Tube. Standing next to the immaculately dressed Kingsley, Remus suddenly felt he stuck out like a sore thumb.

"I think I'm the only one here not going to his job," he told Kingsley.

"And that doesn't even make you feel great?" Kingsley said in mock-surprise. "I reckon everybody here would love to have today off."

"I'd love to have to go to work today." Remus winked at Kingsley. "Say, isn't there a vacancy at the Prime Minister's?"

Kingsley laughed. "Nothing suited to your talents I'm afraid, unless you know how to repair fax machines."

"A what now?"

"Exactly."

The Circle line train arrived and the struggle to board began. Most people at least had the decency to let the people on board alight. Then it was every man for himself before the doors closed. Kingsley and Remus managed to get a spot right next to one of the bright yellow poles intended to hold on to while the train was driving. Normally quite useful, but during the morning traffic they were pretty much useless: it was so busy they didn't have any way to fall to.

Remus picked up an abandoned newspaper from next to a sleepy commuter and quickly leafed through it. It was all Muggle news, sadly, so it barely meant anything to him and couldn't interest him anyway. He never_ would _understand the fascination with the royal family, who, in his opinion, seemed intend on making their lives a soap opera. At least Lady Diana, whose charity work had got her another page-long article, seemed sympathetic, if rather tragic.

"Anything interesting?" Kingsley wanted to know.

"No, unless you're interested in Princess something-or-other wearing an apparently horrible dress according to some self-appointed expert. And there's a bit about your boss, that he's not capable of ruling the country but we all knew that already, didn't we?" Remus folded the newspaper and threw it aside.

"The opposition always thinks the current ruler is incapable of ruling," Kingsley shrugged. "Until they have to do it themselves."

Remus nodded, unable to say something because the train had just stopped at a station and there was a hustle and bustle of people getting off and on the train, while the anonymous female voice boomed that everybody should mind the gap between the train and the platform. When everybody had squeezed themselves into the train, the doors shut and the train set off again through the dark tunnels of the Underground.

"What are your plans for today?" Kingsley asked.

"Not sure really," Remus confessed. "I have to make a beginning _somewhere_, but I don't know where. I just don't know where to start. I feel like I've already looked everywhere and I've run completely out of ideas."

"Well…" said Kingsley pensively. Remus had told him of the few hints he had gotten from the werewolf in Azkaban, hoping that the Auror would have knowledge that could point him anywhere. So far, however, Kingsley hadn't been able to help. Remus let him think for a moment, but already knew this, too, probably wasn't going to lead anywhere. His thoughts were proven when Kingsley said with a weak smile: "well, he told you to start underground. You're _in _the Underground."

"Har-har," Remus said sarcastically. "Very clever. Pity that I already thought of that. And trust me, there's nobody on this train who's going to be in any way helpful." If there was a werewolf on this train – besides himself – he would know. The scent would be unmistakable.

Kingsley shrugged. "Then I don't know either."

They rode in silence for a minute. The train stopped at another station, the last one before Kingsley had to get off. It was noticeable that they neared the centre of London, as more people got off than they got on.

As the train set off again, Kingsley broke the silence: "Remus, I was wondering something."

"What?" Remus asked wearily. He didn't like the way Kingsley was looking at him.

"How is Tonks doing?"

Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes; he had suspected something like this was going to come up. The entire world seemed to scheme to get him to talk about Tonks.

"I don't know," he said evasively.

"I think you do," Kingsley said coolly.

: Why don't you tell me?" Remus suddenly felt rebellious. _He has no business interfering with this; it's none of his business. _

"Listen," Kingsley said, calmly but mildly threateningly. "I don't plan to make a habit of doing things like this, so I want you to pay attention to this. What you and Tonks do in your free time is entirely up to you, and frankly I don't even want to know, but I can_not _keep silent when I see she's getting miserable over something which has clearly to do with you. Whatever happened, I _strongly _recommend you make it up. Tonks is kind of like the little sister I never had, and I'll exercise my big-brother rights if I have to."

Remus suddenly noticed just how much taller Kingsley was than he, and how much broader build. In fact, for the first time in years he felt like a scrawny, defenceless little man, which wasn't a very pleasant experience.

"Alright, alright," he said quickly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, fool," Kingsley said shortly, suddenly seeming rather embarrassed with the whole situation. "You know what to do."

_Easier said than done_, Remus thought, but he kept quiet. He had a feeling that right now, Kingsley wouldn't be very sympathetic if he offered the reasons for the break-up.

The train slowed down again. The intercom announced Westminster and informed them they had to alight here for Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. Also, they were to mind the gap between the train and the platform.

Remus and Kingsley obediently did so as they got off the train. Fortunately, the escalator here did work, and after a few more short staircases they arrived at street level, directly opposite the familiar clock tower attached to the Houses of Parliament which held the world-famous bell, the Big Ben. Remus habitually glanced upwards but he couldn't see the clock itself: for the past weeks, the top of the tower had been obscured by the thick fog plaguing Britain. He glanced at more of an eye-level instead. The streets were already filled with cars and buses. Remus even saw a sightseeing bus driving past despite the early hour.

"I got to hurry, else I'll be late," Kingsley said. "I'll be seeing you?"

"Of course," Remus said, shaking hands. "Next meeting at Deadalus's."

"See you then."

"Enjoy your day."

Kingsley gave him a wry smile which told Remus the Auror very much doubted that wish would come true: it was another day in the Muggle world for him. It wasn't something the pure-blooded Kingsley had expected to one day be doing when he had decided to become an Auror.

Remus watched Kingsley hurry away, completely blending in with the mass in his dark suit and with his suitcase in his hand. He then turned the opposite direction and sauntered towards the Thames, only a few dozen yards away. The broad river was a murky sort of green. Because of the heavy fog that still dominated the weather, there was no light on the water, and the entire atmosphere was much too drab for July. When Remus had crossed Westminster Bridge he encountered a brave man with an ice cream van, but judging by the man's face he wasn't expecting much business today. Remus and the man exchanged unenthusiastic smiles; then Remus turned and, leaning against the banister of Westminster Bridge, looked out over the Thames.

What was the point of it all? What could he do? Everywhere around him, people had places to go to, things to do, and here he stood doing nothing because he had no idea _what _he could do. Fenrir Greyback moved in a whole other sphere than he did, almost literally an underground to Remus' upper ground. Remus supposed that if he had been somebody like Mundungus Fletcher, he would have had a much easier time getting into Greyback's circles, but he simply _wasn't. _For a moment he cursed his law-abiding upbringing which had given him only pleasant relatives and friends without any contacts into the criminal world whatsoever. Then he smiled at the absurd thought of his parents being involved with any sort of crime.

_But that's just it, isn't it? I need to be a Mundungus to do my job. _He drew up his shoulders both at the thought and at the cold fog coming from the river beneath him and narrowed his eyes as he tried to look through the fog at the buildings now obscured by it. He knew they were there, but just invisible. Suddenly a metaphor struck him and he smiled. _Perhaps_, he thought, _that's just what I need to do_. Get through the fog at what's under it. In this case, forgo all his parents' warnings and renounce law-abiding live. He looked around him at the people hurrying past him towards their work. _I'm not working, that's already one step. _

He shivered, and not just because of the cold. This was not going to be fun. There was a reason he had been a Prefect, and it wasn't because he had regularly openly shunned rules.

"Well, maybe I should have a talk with Dung one of these days," he muttered. He put his hands in his pockets and walked towards the Underground station again. Walking inside was a relief, even though the air was stale and stank of metal and that typical Underground smell: at least it was dryer than outside.

He walked downstairs towards the platform. As he got through the tourniquets, he suddenly got a strange feeling, as if somebody had tapped on his shoulder. He looked around, but there was nobody who could have done such a thing, only a group of tired-looking tourists wanting to pass through as well. Remus went on down the escalator, never entirely able to shake the strange feeling off.

As he arrived at the platform, a District line train just arrived and he hopped on board. It was considerably less crowded than it had been that morning, so he was able to sit down on a bench. Here, the feeling of being watched by somebody was much stronger. He tried to look around and _smell _around as inconspicuously as possible but had to stop when a young boy was giving him strange looks from his mother's lap. The feeling kept nagging, however.

He got off at Tower Hill with the vague intention of walking around the Tower of London and maybe cross the Tower Bridge. He often walked these standard tourist tracks as it kept him among people and made it seem he had some kind of goal.

He had just reached the escalators upwards when it hit him: _that _smell. He immediately realised _that _had been what he had felt. Not somebody personally familiar, but _species_ familiar if you like. There was a werewolf here.

He began to sniff carefully, breathing in deeply (not a pleasant task in an Underground station where a lot of people with damp coats and hair had been). His nose took him through a corridor towards a Circle Line platform, which was completely deserted.

Except for the man sitting on a bench nearly at the other side of the platform.

The man sat bend over with the hood of his coat pulled over his head, but Remus _knew _this was the one he had smelled out. He began walking towards the man, feeling both apprehensive and excited. Was he finally going to get somewhere?

As he got closer, he saw that the man had a grubby carton coffee cup in his hand, probably intended for coins. It now hung rather limply in the man's hand; was he sleeping?

He wasn't. When Remus had approached the man to within a few yards, he abruptly raised his head and fixed two hard yellow eyes on Remus. And Remus realised suddenly that perhaps Kingsley hadn't been so stupid after all.

_At the fringes and underground…_

* * *

It seemed the weather wasn't ever going to improve.

Perhaps a good thing too, as the fog perfectly fit Tonks' mood as she dragged her trunk through Hogsmeade, on her way to the house she was going to live in for the coming months (_years? _the pessimistic side of her thought). She had arrived from London just a few minutes earlier, having used Floo powder to get to the Three Broomsticks: Apparating wasn't a good idea with a trunk in tow, and the weather was much too bad to fly all the way on a broomstick.

Fortunately, the Hogsmeade Auror Station was only a few houses away from the Three Broomsticks. She stopped the trunk with a wave of her wand, and it hovered a few inches above the ground right next to her leg, almost like a large squarish dog. Resisting the urge to give it a pat on the 'head', she reached out and rang the doorbell.

A few minutes later, the door was opened by a man with a long blonde ponytail. Tonks knew his face but couldn't quite remember his name, so it was very useful that he extended his hand to her and introduced himself as Roderick Savage.

"Nymphadora Tonks," she said, shaking hands.

"Number four," he smiled. "Do come in. I just made tea, would you like some?"

"I'll accept anything that's warm right now," Tonks said. She got inside, directing her trunks towards the stairs with her wand. "Where can I put my stuff?"

"I'll show you your room first," Savage said. "The other two aren't here at the moment so I'll have to show you which rooms you can't take anymore. Well, actually, there's only one room left so you'll have no choice."

"Just show me that one then, I don't care."

Savage led her up a steep staircase to a narrow and dark landing. Tonks guessed that the house was at least half a century old and probably not managed for over a decade. The banister for the staircase seemed to fall off if you only looked at it, and large chips of paint were missing from the four doors leading out on the landing.

"Now, it's very easy," Savage said. He pointed to the doors. "The bathroom – over there – is shared, but it has a lock. Just be nice and don't hog it for hours at a time. That's my room, that one is Pandora's –"

"Pandora?"

"Proudfoot. Don't make fun of her name, she'll slap you."

"It's not like I have the right to comment," Tonks said a bit sourly, with a sort of half-shrug. Savage smiled.

"Dawlish sleeps in the attic," he continued, "and you'll have this room." He opened the door and revealed a narrow, sparingly but cosily decorated bedroom. The door was directly opposite the window. There was an old wrought-iron bed on the right side, with the head directly next to the window. On the opposite side of the window there was a simple desk with a wooden chair. Next to it was a narrow inbuilt closet. The flowered curtains and wallpaper were garish to Tonks' opinions, but she had to admit it was sort of cosily womanish in an old-fashioned sort of way. _To put it very vaguely_.

"It's to your liking?" Savage asked.

"Yes, it's alright." Tonks put her trunk at the foot end of her bed, and it suddenly looked much more like _her_ room already.

"There's a wash table and everything in the bathroom. Oh, look: lock." Savage pointed to the door lock in question. "There's a hook on the window to secure that one as well, in case you want to."

"That'll be useful, thanks." Tonks opened her trunks rather demonstratively, wordlessly telling him he could go now.

"I'll leave you to unpack and install yourself for a bit," Savage said courteously, giving a half-bow. "I'll have tea ready when you come downstairs, and I'll talk you through your first day."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Tonks kept piling clothes onto the bed until she had heard him reach the bottom of the stairs, then she sat down on the bed, blinking unexpected tears away. Suddenly she felt eleven years old again, just arrived at Hogwarts in a castle filled with people she didn't know and without her parents to help her. She swallowed, telling herself to get a grip: she was more than twice as old as she had been when she had started Hogwarts, so crying and getting homesick really wouldn't do. She had a job to do, one which Mum and Dad really couldn't help with. _Get yourself together, girl. _

She looked around her room. Yes, the curtains had flowers on them, and the wallpaper was something her Grandma would have loved, but who said she couldn't get her own curtains and pin some posters over the wallpaper? Put some photographs on the desk, a few books here and there, litter the floor with clothes; this was going to feel like home before long.

She straightened her back. Yes, sure she was nervous, but hey, Molly had said that was okay. Besides, she told herself, the others were probably just as anxious about this. And hadn't she wanted to get away from the Ministry? Well, here had been her chance, and now was not the time to complain. She was going to make something of this.

She got up again and purposefully continued unpacking her trunk, carefully storing her clothes away in the closet and putting her books, photographs and other personal belongings on the desk. When she was done she surveyed everything contentedly. _That doesn't look too bad. Quite cosy, in fact_, she thought and smiled to herself. After readjusting a photograph of her parents so it was at a better angle with the one of her and Sirius, she left the room and walked downstairs, ready for her first day here.

_I'm going to make something of this. _


	6. Underground

**So... it's been, what, eight months since the last update? SORRY! Eek. Real life and all that got in the way. Thankfully JK Rowling hasn't published the next book (Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows... interesting) in the meantime, but still...**

**A new chapter just in time for the new year. I hope you'll enjoy it, and I'll definitely try and finish the next chapter WITHIN eight months! Shouldn't be too hard...**

**Many thanks to Amy for beta-reading this!****

* * *

**

July/August 1996

"_I've been underground. Almost literally."_

* * *

Remus vowed that if he ever got out of this, he'd never use the London Underground again.

He couldn't for the life of him remember why he'd liked it in the first place. After two weeks of spending hours underground travelling from station to station, his head had become dull with the noise and the stale smell, and his eyes ached after such long time spend in artificial light.

The company he was in wasn't much help either.

"Alright, buy me some coffee."

"I bought you coffee this morning," sighed Remus.

"Yeah, but that was…" Dodger looked around for a clock, "four hours ago and I want another cup. Get me one."

"Do I look like I'm made out of money?" Remus said irritably.

Dodger shrugged. "Then don't get it. Find Greyback on your own." With that, he started to walk away.

"Alright! Fine!" Remus gritted his teeth. "I'll get you your bloody coffee."

Dodger had the nerve to shrug, as if to say "fine, if you insist", and went to stand watch outside the coffee bar while Remus bought him the warm drink. He didn't appear to notice that the people around him were carefully avoiding touching him – homeless people, especially when they looked so obviously homeless, lived in a world of their own. When Remus came outside and handed him his coffee, he accepted the cup without so much as a word.

"Where're we going next?" Remus asked wearily.

"Victoria's nice at this time of day," Dodger said, warming his gloved hands on the coffee cup. "Loads of people."

"Great. Let's go."

They were boring days. Remus generally tagged along with the werewolf he'd met in the Underground, spending his days getting in and out of trains, watching people, listening to Dodger's ramblings and buying the man coffee and fast-food, which was all the man appeared to eat. And then… nothing. Two weeks had passed and still Dodger (Remus wasn't quite sure if it was his real name or a nickname; he had thought of asking if it was a literary reference but then decided that it wasn't likely that somebody living on the street was a Dickens enthusiast) hadn't given even the faintest hint that he was going to lead Remus to Greyback soon. In fact, he seemed to be quite enjoying letting Remus wander around the Underground getting more and more frustrated at the uselessness of it all. Sometimes it even felt to Remus that it was a way (a rather petty one, he reflected) for the man to get revenge, having the 'traitor' who had accepted the Ministry's help live the life of the outlaws.

But Remus was stuck with him: he was the only way he knew to Greyback, and if he called it quits now, no doubt Dodger would get word out and then nobody else would be willing to help him. He'd have to stick up with it, even if it meant living on the street, buying food for an ungrateful werewolf and, unfortunately, stinking to high heaven.

* * *

"Yes, yes, I know. Just point me to the bathroom."

Remus shook the moist from his hair as he stepped inside. Deena, wrinkling her nose at the smell, quickly stepped out of the way.

"Through that hallway," she pointed. "Give me you coat, I'll… air it out a bit." _If possible_, she seemed to think. It was rather amazing how much distaste such a small Indian woman could show. No wonder Kingsley Shacklebolt was attracted to her: what she lacked in height, she made up for with a fierce personality. Nobody would be able to boss her around.

"Thanks a lot." He handed her his coat and quickly made his way to the bathroom, eager for a shower. If only he could just wash his hair.

He was lucky that Kingsley lived in London and had offered him shelter if he needed it. He had rented out his cottage in Derbyshire (well, only as a summer residence since nobody would live in the middle of nowhere without running water when it was winter. Even now it wasn't the greatest of places) and had practically nowhere else to go. And he _needed _these modern luxuries, if only to feel himself again. Life on the street would never be his way of living.

He quickly showered, giving his hair a thorough washing: he was afraid of catching lice. It would be a double embarrassment, to catch lice in the 1990's and being a _werewolf_ too…It would be too humiliating ironic. For a moment he imagined Sirius' reaction, his barking laugh.

_Well, I'll just give _him_ lice as well and see how he likes it_, he thought with a sort of smug satisfaction before realising… Well, that was all water under the bridge.

He rinsed his hair one more time, then got out of the shower and dressed. There was another Order meeting tonight and he wanted to eat beforehand, so he'd better hurry up. He wasn't sure where the meeting would be – Kingsley would know – so he had no idea how he was going to get there either.

Deena had anticipated his wishes and was just putting a lavish meal on the table when he walked into the living room. The first time he had eaten at Kingsley's and Deena had cooked, he had expected something Indian, with rice and curry perhaps. She had surprised him by making very ordinary mashed potatoes with sausages. As she said, "just because I look Indian and my family is from India doesn't mean I can only make chapattis." She defied stereotyping anyway by being very outspoken and headstrong for such a small and frail-looking woman, and she liked to wear Muggle clothing – trousers and a shirt – even though she worked as a Healer in St Mungo's. Remus had a feeling Tonks would like her.

"There you are," she said as she saw him come in. "Sit down. Kingsley will be home in a few minutes."

"Thanks," he said. He sat down, then went to stare hungrily at the food. Pasta. He hadn't had pasta in, oh, _days._

"Oh for God's sake, you can eat," Deena said after seeing him eat with his eyes. "I made extra for you anyway, so you might as well get a head start."

He didn't need telling twice. By the time Kingsley came home, a few minutes later, he had already nearly finished his first plateful and he definitely felt there was room in his stomach for more. He had to wave at Kingsley for a greeting because his mouth was full.

"Well, don't mind me," Kingsley said, only mildly sarcastically, when he saw Remus.

"I thought I'd let him start eating already," Deena explained.

"He looks like he needs it anyway," Kingsley commented. "Remus, you look like death warmed over."

Remus swallowed down a mouthful of pasta. "I feel like it, too."

Kingsley and Deena sat down as well. Deena filled three large glasses with water and passed one to Remus, which he accepted gratefully. During the next fifteen minutes he said little, preferring to concentrate on his dinner while his hosts talked with each other. Remus had been a guest so often that they felt comfortable ignoring him for a while, and Remus didn't mind. He didn't want them to kick up a fuzz just because he was around when all he really wanted was to rest and feel like a normal human being for a while.

Dessert was a piece of fruit each, although Remus was forced two because "you look more than peaky". The smell of oranges soon filled the room.

"Order meeting again tonight?" Deena asked casually, her eyes on the orange she was peeling.

"Yeah," Kingsley said. "At Dedalus Diggles's."

"That's not very often that we have one there," Remus commented.

"No, I'm surprised Dumbledore agreed. Even with our usual security measure it feels unsafe there. Not that I don't trust Dedalus, but I can all too easily imagine him forgetting just that one precaution that will do us in."

"Of course, you are actually just a control-freak who won't trust anything until he's triple-checked it himself," Deena said, smiling.

"No, it's not that," Kingsley protested.

"Yes, it is. You're an Auror. Security is your job."

"Well, nowadays it's mostly repairing printers, it seems, but…"

"Why haven't you ever suggested holding a meeting here?" Remus cut in.

"And fit everybody where? People'd be sitting in the kitchen and in the hallway. There's simply no room for everybody."

"But you _would _be able to really control the security," Deena said.

"Not really. It would pass security and go straight to crowd control."

Deena smiled but said nothing. Remus was under the impression that she didn't really mind not having an Order meeting at her house anyway but had just suggested it for contrariness' sake.

"I don't want to pry – " he began.

"Yes, you do," Deena said calmly.

"- but can I ask something?"

"Of course."

"I'm sure Kingsley has already suggested it, but I was just wondering how come you're not in the Order of the Phoenix? I mean, not suggesting I want to recruit you," he added hurriedly, seeing Kingsley giving him a kind of 'what?'-look, "but I was just well, wondering."

"Who says I'm not?" Deena teased. "Who says I'm not some kind of spy?"

"Well…" Remus said doubtfully.

"I'm not, don't worry. Yes, it has been suggested to me, once – " She gave Kingsley a meaningful look. "– but to be honest I have no wish to join. I'm not really one for fighting in secret resistance groups. I prefer to work on the sidelines. Cleaning up your messes in St Mungo's." She smiled wryly. "I sympathise but I doubt I'd be much use to you."

"That's alright," Remus said. "It was just a question."

"You have to be slightly mad to join, anyway," Kingsley said with only the tiniest hint of… was it bitterness?

"Why, thanks," Remus joked. "Agreed, though. It's either for the really brave or the really stupid. And sometimes I tend to lump everybody in the second category."

"Don't we all," Deena said, smiling.

She went to clean off the table while Kingsley and Remus readied themselves for the Order meeting tonight. Remus was glad that he'd had the change to take a shower; he felt wonderfully clean. One only appreciates certain luxuries when one has no immediate access to them anymore.

They said goodbye to Deena and went outside. Remus was all but ready to Apparate away when Kingsley stopped him.

"Just a second," he said. "I need to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"Ever heard of Igor Karkaroff?"

"Of course." Remus was a little surprised – what was this about? "Durmstrang's former headmaster. Was at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament and left hurriedly – or should I said _fled_? – after Voldemort's return. Um… Sirius wrote me about him. Why?"

"I have reason to believe he died. And fairly recently, too."

"What? Just now? But… why do you think so?"

"Well, we found his body and he wasn't breathing, so that was a fairly strong hint," Kingsley said with a feeling for sarcasm. "Also, there was the Dark Mark above his… hut. Cottage, type of thing. That tipped us off in the first place, really."

"Us here being the Aurors?"

"Yeah. I still hear things through the grapevine. They're still investigating; it's not officially come out yet so I'd appreciate if you didn't tell the rest of the world yet.

"Of course not. D'you know how he died?"

"Killing Curse, the way I understood it. Clean and quick. He's lucky, really."

"Absolutely." Remus remembered how some of the members of the Order of the Phoenix had died during the first War. _Everybody _had hoped that, if they died, they'd die by the Killing Curse, but few had been lucky enough to get their wish. "It's a shame, though," he said. "Karkaroff could have helped us."

"The way I heard, he'd have been too afraid of his own life – understandable, especially now – but yeah, we could have done with him. We could do with a lot more spies besides the one we have now."

"Yeah." It wasn't that Snape was a bad spy; it was more that he answered only to Dumbledore and kept up an annoyingly superior air to the rest of the Order. Besides, having just one spy didn't exactly make for absolute security: what if the information Snape got was false? They'd have no way to get any other information… Having another person infiltrate the Death Eaters would help. The problem was that nobody was keen on the job and the Death Eaters were very suspicious when it came to new members. It wouldn't be easy to get in. ­­­

"Is it alright if I tell the Weasleys and Harry, though?" Remus asked. "I mean, they… met him and all. They might want to know."

"When will you be seeing them, anyway?"

"Tomorrow. It's Harry's sixteenth birthday and I kind of suspect Molly will drag me there by my ear if I don't show up, so I have to. Alright, not that it's a chore."

"Not exactly an exciting birthday gift, this news," Kingsley commented wryly.

"No indeed." Remus reflexively pulled up his shoulders as a way to express his reluctance. "Especially since it'll probably be combined with those Dementor attacks of the past few days. I have no idea how much they know – everybody shows up so infrequently at Meetings…"

"I know. It's just that everybody is so busy. I sometimes wonder how Dumbledore keeps up with everybody."

"Well, Dumbledore's inhuman of course," Remus permitted himself a joke. "And so much has happened the past few weeks, it seems like an avalanche of bad news. Makes you dread what we'll be hearing tonight."

"No kidding. And I thought being an Auror was a stressful job."

"One day," Remus said mock-consolingly, patting Kingsley on the shoulder, "this will all be over and you'll again have the pleasure of merely arresting wizards for flying under influence. Won't that be fun?"

"I can hardly wait," Kingsley said. "Come, let's go to that meeting; let's get this over with."

* * *

"- Alight here for the Piccadilly and Northern line. Alight here for National Rail Services."

Remus yawned. He knew the Underground announcements by heart by now and he barely paid attention anymore. He suspected he would, when put to the test, be able to navigate the Underground in his sleep. In fact, he was nearly doing so.

"You could at least _pretend _to be interested," said Dodger in an annoyed voice. He had been regaling Remus with tales of his past, like how he'd come to live on the street and how unkindly the world had treated him. There were a lot of stories in the latter category.

"Sorry." Remus apologised out of habit. "Haven't slept much tonight."

"Oh, haven't you? You got nerve to complain! D'you know where _I _slept once, hm? Why, it was – "

And off he was again.

Remus _hadn't _slept much that night. It had been Harry's birthday yesterday and it had been quite a… interesting evening. Remus honestly couldn't think of any other word to describe it, even though he had spent half the night trying to. First of all it was just plain weird to think of Harry – little Harry who had thrown up over James once because he, despite what James had thought, _really _didn't like bananas and grapefruits and kiwi mashed together ("but it's _fruit_!" James had protested. "It's _good _for him!") – as being sixteen years old already when Remus himself didn't feel that much older than, say, twenty-five. Secondly, it hadn't been much of a party since most of the conversations had always ended up at the War and the people who'd died so far. And last but not least Molly had been giving him these Looks all evening, the Looks Remus had labelled the Tonks-looks, or have-you-spoken-to-her-yet?-she's-so-sad-you-should-comfort-her. He could well do without those, but it did give him a massive feeling of guilt and he had consecutively spent most of the night worrying about whether he should feel guilt, exactly about what he should feel guilty and whether that was justified, and why anyone would want to mash bananas, grapefruit and kiwi together and how on earth James got that idea. As worrying went, it had been a wonderful night since Remus was a great worrier. As sleep went, it hadn't been so good, and he was paying for it during the day.

He absentmindedly bought the both of them coffee at a fast-food restaurant while Dodger babbled on about werewolf discrimination, particularly when it came to himself.

"Ah, coffee always does you good." Dodger drained the cup noisily, seemed to think for a moment and then put the cup away in the pocked of his ratty coat. Never waste a good cup. "Makes you warm and wakes you up."

"I prefer tea," Remus said.

Dodger snorted disdainfully. "Tea. Bet your Ministry-loving friends made you learn to drink that, such a posh, stuck-up drink. Slice of lemon, too, _sir_?"

"What, real werewolves don't drink tea?" Remus asked sceptically – _what a ridiculous notion_. "Greyback's a caffeine addict, is he?"

Dodger hesitated. "I… he…"

"How is Greyback these days?" Remus went on. "I haven't heard of him in ages, and I did understand that you could take me to him so obviously you'd be in contact with him, right?"

"Are you being sarcastic at me?" Dodger asked with narrowed eyes. "Because I won't be having that, you know."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"As a matter of fact I have heard of him a few days ago, regarding you, but if you get cheeky…"

Remus held his breath; he could barely believe what he was hearing. "Yes?"

Dodger sniffed, trying to appear disdainful but coming across more as a petulant child. "Then I won't take you to him."

"Alright, I'm sorry. I won't be cheeky or anything." Remus was willing to _grovel _if he had to. "But what did Greyback say to you? When did you meet him?"

"Well I didn't meet _him _of course. He's not stupid. He doesn't go out meeting street folk like me. He's got more important things to do." Despite the fact that he just admitted that he was too low on the hierarchy to be talked to by the leader, the man didn't seem to care. He was as avoided by the top werewolves as he was by the Ministry, but that didn't matter. Greyback might be a bastard, but at least he was _the werewolves' _bastard. They fought for a common cause and that was what mattered, not the fact that Dodger would again come last. "Greyback send a messenger. I send word out that I'd met you and what you wanted. Took a while to reach the right persons, but it worked. At least with us when you send a message out, you can be sure it reaches the right person."

_Yes_, thought Remus, _but most of the time I doubt the result is the kind of attention you want… _"You told people about me?" he repeated. "So… half the population knows who I am now?"

"Don't be daft. Only the people who need to know. Anyway, apparently Greyback was _very _interested in you." Dodger tapped the side of his nose in a gesture that was oddly lewd and suggestive. "So he asked for you to be send up straight away."

"Send up?" Remus was unable to hide the hint of panic in his voice. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Are you stupid? What do you _think _it means? He wants to meet you, of course! Wasn't that what you wanted? Hm?"

"Well, yes, of course."

"Now then, what are you complaining about? Ungrateful sod." Dodger glared at Remus, glad to be the one in control of things again.

"When will this all happen?" Remus' mind whirled; things were going a bit fast.

"I'm supposed to take you to a certain place tonight. You'll be a Greyback's pack tomorrow."

Remus stared while this sank in. "_Tomorrow_?"

Things were _definitely _going a bit fast.

* * *

"Bloody awful weather."

"Oh really? I honestly hadn't noticed through all that fog."

Dawlish glared at Pandora Proudfoot, who'd made the second comments. "It's exactly the fog I'm complaining about. You can't see a bloody thing. How are you supposed to keep watch here when you can't see anything? How do you know there's someone coming?"

"Guess?" Pandora shrugged good-naturedly. She made herself a little more comfortable on the couch, hiding her smirk from Dawlish behind her magazine.

"Well, at least this weather will keep most people indoors so there'll be less trouble," Tonks said as she walked past, fastening her robes. "I'm off."

"You'll have dinner with us at the Three Broomsticks," Pandora called after her. "Rosmerta will have a dinner for all of us and will be terribly offended if you don't come."

Tonks sighed inaudibly as she paused on the doorstep. "Alright," she said. "I'll come."

"That's my girl. Good luck."

Tonks shook her head, but smiling, as she pulled the door shut behind her. She was the youngest Auror on the squad; all the others were at least a few years older than her, so it was not surprising that she was being babied by the others. It was touching, really. But she had decided early on not to let herself be mothered too much: there was a fine line between being cared for and being a push-over, and she definitely wanted to stay on the right side. Besides, she valued her privacy, especially right now. She was therefore thankful for patrol rounds, which were usually done alone.

It wasn't that hard. Their task was to guard the village of Hogsmeade and around the gates of Hogwarts – Hogwarts itself had its own protection and was quite safe, it was just important to stop enemies from getting to the gates. So they covered Hogsmeade itself and its outskirts and the strip of forest from Hogsmeade to the gates of Hogwarts. Roderick Savage, who was in charge of the Aurors at Hogsmeade, had set up a routine and a schedule, making sure that the next Auror left Headquarters on the round when the previous one was nearly back, meaning that there would always be two Aurors patrolling Hogsmeade, the starting and ending point of the round. It was easier now that Hogwarts' school year hadn't begun yet; Roderick had mentioned he was thinking of tightening security once the students arrived. You couldn't be too careful.

Tonks proceeded casually down Hogsmeade Main Street, past the shops that appeared dimly-lit in the fog, and turned right into the forest surrounding the village, walking towards the iron-wrought gates of Hogwarts. Dawlish had been right, it _was _terrible weather to guard something – Tonks could only see a few dozen feet away, and once she was in the forest it felt like the rest of the world had disappeared.

"_Lumos_," she whispered, taking comfort in the glowing tip of her wand, which cast dim shadows on the ground. It was barely five o'clock, it was August, but yet it seemed like it would be dark soon.

She followed the path, well-worn by dozens, hundreds of students, towards Hogwarts. She liked this part of her round. It was familiar so she didn't really need to worry about getting lost, and as chances of meeting somebody were small it was a perfect place to just walk and think. The past few weeks, those thoughts had been mainly reminiscences of her Hogwarts years and all the trips to Hogsmeade she'd made then. Planning on where to go practically from the minute the day was announced, spending half her pocket-money on Honeydukes' sweets, drinking warm Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks and most importantly spending the entire day chatting and giggling with her friend Artemis (they bonded over the fact that they both had parents who apparently liked to torture their children with strange names).

Hogwarts' gates were closed. It was still a strange thing for Tonks, who had always pictured Hogwarts as this wonderful place where you could always go to have a great time. It had never really occurred to her that, despite it being in a castle and all, it was still a _school _and, therefore, closed and barely occupied during the summer. _But it feels as if it has died_, she thought as she walked past the gates, looking at where the distant silhouette of the castle would have been visible had the weather been clear. _It feels as if all life has gone and the castle has died, or has fallen into some kind of enchanted sleep or hibernation or something. You would half expect yellowing leaves or snow, but that's exactly when there are the most people here. Very strange. _

She took one last look at the gates, concluding that nobody had tried to mess with them. The protective charms around Hogwarts were powerful; you could almost feel the magic sizzle when you touched the iron gates. They would notice when somebody tried to get in.

It was odd, Tonks thought as she began to walk back to Hogsmeade, to think that she'd been here less than eight months ago, and then there'd been snow everywhere, and they'd come with the Knight Bus. It was all so different now. Well, Remus had been there.

There, she'd thought it. She'd thought of him. And now she willed herself to think of something, _somebody _else, and she wouldn't get all emotional and depressed. She was over that. Definitely.

She spend the rest of the route forcing herself to think of a good gift for her father, who'd celebrate his birthday in a few weeks, and once she got back to Hogsmeade she complimented herself on a job well done. She had actually spent about thirty-five percent of the time thinking about things related to her father. That was a definite improvement.

As it was nearly six o'clock now, she walked to the Three Broomsticks, where Pandora had said dinner would be ready. Pandora would be on patrol right now, but there'd be Roderick Savage and Dawlish to talk to if she wanted to, and else there would be newspapers and magazines and stuff.

The warmth of the wizard pub engulfed Tonks when she walked in. Only now did she notice that her hair, still mouse-brown, was hanging limp and damp because of the fog. She shook her head wildly and rained water everywhere.

"Tonks! Over here!" Roderick called from a round table in the corner where he was eating his dinner. She made her way towards him, which was quite easy as there were very few customers at this moment, and sat down.

"Here, have dinner," Roderick half ordered. He gestured at Madam Rosmerta, who got the hint and brought Tonks a plateful of food.

"Thanks," Tonks said gratefully. She began to eat, relishing the warm food.

"How was patrolling?" Roderick asked.

Tonks shrugged. "Okay, I guess," she said. "Pretty much the same as the past weeks, really."

"I think the first of September will change that, no doubt," Roderick worried. "All those students… And Harry Potter, too!"

Tonks only just managed to hold in a snort when she imagined Harry's reaction to this worry. "I don't think he'd like to hear that you're worried about his safety so much," she said.

"_He _may not care about his safety, but _we _do," said Roderick primly. "He's the Chosen One, after all."

"Oh, yes, of course."

Perhaps her lack of enthusiasm was a bit too obvious, because shortly thereafter Roderick excused himself and left, leaving Tonks alone at the table. She didn't much care.

_Of course Harry is an extra point of concern_, she thought. _He _is _the Chosen One. It's just weird to think of him like that when I've been to his house and seen the mess he made of his bedroom. Saviours of the world shouldn't leave their unwashed socks on the floor. It ruins their image. _

She hoped for Harry's sake that he wasn't too worked up over all this. He was only sixteen years old, after all… He should be worried about school and, err, girls, not the fate of the wizarding world.

_In a way it was easier last year_, Tonks mused. _Then it was just us against the rest of the world and everybody thought Harry was a liar except us. Now everybody wants Harry to safe their arse and all we, that is to say, the Order of the Phoenix, the former good guys, can do is stand on the side-line because we're still pretty much an underground organisation. _She sighed, frustrated. _I wish I were normal so I wouldn't be in this mess. Then again, who knows what other boring life I would live? ­_She frowned at the question, then sighed, got up, handed her plate back to Madam Rosmerta and walked back to the Auror Headquarters.

_I wish I didn't think so much… _


	7. Further Down

**... no, there is no excuse. The last update was on December 31, 2006, EXACTLY a year ago. In the meantime, so incredibly much has happened. The only excuse I can possibly give is that TDH has quite put me off writing Remus and Tonks for a while, for an understandable reason I'd think. I DO intend to continue writing this fic and getting to the end, I swear. It's just taking a little longer than I thought!**

**

* * *

****August/September 1996**

_Harry looked sideways at Tonks under his cloak. Last year she had been inquisitive (to the point of being a little annoying at times), she had laughed easily, she had made jokes. Now __she seemed older and much more serious and purposeful. _

* * *

"_Tonight_?"

"Yes. I'm supposed to be at Leicester Square Station at seven o'clock." Remus folded his hands in his lap as he sat on Kingsley's couch, fretting inwardly but seeming calm on the outside, a way which had always exasperated Sirius because it made him seem detached and unfeeling.

"This is rather unexpected, isn't it?" Kingsley rubbed his hand over his bald head; had he had hair he would have run his hand through it in bewilderment. He had come home just an hour ago after a hard day's work and it took some time for it all to sink in.

"You're telling me. I had hoped things would go quickly but I hadn't counted on them going this quickly."

"You will be alright, won't you?" Kingsley asked, more to make sure than because he was worried: he knew Remus and that he wouldn't do anything stupid.

"Yeah, I think so. I got my wand of course, and anyway Greyback rather specifically asked to meet me so anybody causing me to… delay or not arrive at all will have to answer to Greyback. And I don't think many werewolves will want to consider that option." It did disturb Remus having to consider the 'delays' the other werewolves might cause him, up to incapacitating him – not to be pessimistic but he wasn't expecting the warmest of welcomes – but again he didn't outwardly show worry. He kept reminding himself that he was armed and that he more or less got Greyback's protection, at least on the way to Greyback. As for any other… events… he'd have to take care of that when they occurred.

"No indeed…" Kingsley said. "You told Dumbledore I presume?"

"Of course. But both he and I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone else where I'm going to. This is kind of a delicate mission."

"N_obody _else?" Kingsley asked rather pointedly.

"Nobody," Remus stressed. "Not even… just nobody, alright? If things go wrong it's best if I just… disappear." For a moment there was a sort of shifty, uncomfortable look in his eyes but it was quickly hidden again behind the brave face Remus put on.

Kingsley looked sceptical and as if he was going to object but remained quiet. _He's an Auror_, Remus thought. _No doubt he knows that a mission can be more important than a person. _

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" Kingsley asked quietly.

"Yes, please." Remus pulled a few letters out of the pocket of his robes. "Could you send these for me? They're letters to my family – I don't want to disappear entirely without trace and without any explanation."

"Of course." Kingsley took the letters. "Anything else?" _A certain non-family person we both know? _he seemed to want to suggest, but he never said it. Remus ignored him.

"One more thing." Remus reached down under the sofa and took out a cardboard box. It appeared to be purring.

"What's that?"

"My pet, Monster. Can you take care of him?"

"I didn't know you had a pet," Kingsley smiled. He opened the box and stared at a custard-coloured fur ball which was purring and vibrating with the pleasure of meeting someone new. "Alright, what is it?"

"It's a Puffskein," Remus said. He got up and reached into the box, scratching Monster on the top of his head. A thin tongue appeared out of the Puffskein's mouth and began to lick Remus's finger. "Hagrid gave him to me when I taught at Hogwarts."

"Somehow I got the idea there's an interesting story there," Kingsley said.

"Yes," Remus said with a small smile, but said nothing more. He scratched Monster's head, lost in thoughts.

"Well," Kingsley eventually broke the silence. "I'll take care of him as if he was my own pet."

"Thanks." Remus glanced at the clock, something he'd been doing more and more often as the day passed.

"Just past six."

"Time to go, I think."

Kingsley was impressed with how impassive Remus's voice sounded, almost as if he didn't care. "I'll take you to the station," the Auror said. "Then I can keep an eye on things."

"I don't think there'll be much to do for you," Remus said.

"Perhaps. Likely I'll just see you greet a bunch of… interesting looking people and then leave the station, but just let me. For my own sanity's sake."

Remus nodded, quietly grateful for the offer. "Alright."

They got their coats on and Remus picked up his battered old suitcase, still held together with string and some strategically placed binding spells. He gave Monster once last pat on the head, then waited outside as Kingsley locked up.

"Won't Deena wonder where you are?" he asked.

"She's working late today so I bet I'll be back home before she is anyway," Kingsley explained. He turned the last key in its lock and tapped it with his wand for extra protection. "Now, do you want to Apparate or take the Tube?"

"Hmm, let's take the Tube." _That takes more time…_

Kingsley nodded in agreement and the two men set out for the nearest Underground station to take the train to Leicester Square Station.

Off to meet the werewolves.

* * *

It was a rather surreal experience to be standing in the Underground train on his way to a group of werewolves while all around him people were completely unaware of there even being a magical world, let alone one with werewolves existing and splitting off from normal society because they were being discriminated against. Remus caught Kingsley's eye once, and the taller black wizard lifted his eyebrows at him as if he was thinking the same thing.

Leicester Square Underground Station was, if possible, even more packed with people. This was a popular destination for tourists and Londoners to go out and have fun, what with the major cinemas and Piccadilly Circus being only a short walk away. But Remus ignored the mass of people, looking out for a certain person. Dodger had said they'd be standing a magazine stall, but there were several and he hadn't been specific. He was surprised when Kingsley lightly touched him on the shoulder.

"Are those the people you're looking for?" he asked softly, nodding towards three people standing next to a magazine stall near the escalators to the platforms of the Northern Line. Dodger was one of them, standing uncomfortably next to two other men. The other two were not taller or significantly more muscled, but there was something in them that made them more fierce and intimidating than anybody around. It was not surprising that everybody tried to avoid them: there was a large half-circle around them.

"Yeah," Remus whispered back. Kingsley frowned and whistled softly.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked. "They look dangerous, and I say that as an Auror."

Remus sighed. "Yes, I am sure. Well, not that I really have a choice. But I've come this far, it would be stupid to quit now."

"About as stupid as going on with it, if you ask me," Kingsley said critically.

"Listen, I'm going to go through with this whether you like it or not." Remus was beginning to get irritated, more out of fear and anxiety for what was to come than out of real anger.

"I'm sorry," Kingsley apologised immediately. "I'm just worried. I've done quite a lot of underground operations myself but this is completely new to me too. You know," he added, half joking and half serious, "if you get out of this you might want to consider applying for a job at the Auror Office. You'll be the first to have infiltrated the werewolves. They'd love you."

"Thanks," Remus half snorted, half grinned. "I'll keep it in mind." He swung his suitcase backwards and forwards once, sighed, then got a look of resolve on his face. "Let's go."

"Good luck," Kingsley said. "Try and keep in touch."

"I will." A last moment of hesitation came over Remus, a sudden feeling that he hadn't quite said everything, that there was one more thing he had to do. One more person, always on the back of his mind… "Listen," he said urgently. "Do me a favour – "

"I'll keep an eye on her," Kingsley promised, sounding both a little weary and amused. "I'll look over her as if she were my own sister." He saw the look on Remus' face and grinned. "You're terribly transparent and just a bit stupid, and I say that as a friend." He gave Remus a small push. "Go."

Remus felt both embarrassed and glad that his friend had caught on so quickly. "See you," he said.

"Of course."

There was really nothing more to say, no more excuses. He nodded to Kingsley, pushed his shoulders back and walked towards the other werewolves.

Dodger seemed relieved to see him, at least. He visibly breathed a sigh of relief when Remus had reached them. His tone was as rough as ever, though.

"Decided to show up, eh?"

"Yes," said Remus simply.

The two other werewolves scowled at him – it was obvious they thought themselves quite of more importance than the two lowlifes they were in the company of. They looked quite similar, both in length and in build, although one of them had dark brown hair and the other was a sort of muddy blonde. They both had several facial scars, and the brown-haired werewolf had the edge of a back-tattoo creeping up his neck from under his shirt. Both of course also had the distinctive yellow eyes which looked icily at Remus.

"Uhm, aren't you going to introduce me?" Remus said, beginning to feel uncomfortable.

"There's no need, we know who you are," said the blond man. The brown-haired man looked at Remus's suitcase and raised his eyes.

"Professor R.J. Lupin, eh? Looks like we got an intellectual here."

"Yeah, pity he doesn't look much in the way of strength." The blond werewolf seized Remus up disdainfully. "He looks weak." He shrugged. "Ah well, it's what Greyback wanted so he'll just have to put up with it."

"Exactly." The tattooed werewolf gave Dodger a rough pat on the back. "Well Dodge, looks like you did something right for a change. We'll take him from here."

"Can't I come - ?" Dodger began a question, but the blond man cut him off.

"Of course not, don't be stupid. Go and beg for some coffee or something." He gave Dodger a push in the opposite direction, then took Remus roughly by the shoulder and began to march him in the direction of the escalators.

Just before he stepped on the escalator, Remus took a look over his shoulder; Dodger was standing forlornly next to the magazine stand, looking rejected.

"Was that necessary?" he complained to the brown-haired werewolf, who was standing in front of him.

"What?" the other man said absent-mindedly. "Oh, it was only Dodger anyway."

"Why _do _you call him Dodger?" was Remus's next question. Perhaps it was unwise to be so nosy but Remus decided that he'd better be a bit irritating than too compliant, so he wouldn't be seen as a complete weakling.

"Because so far he's always managed to dodge Greyback's attention or anger," the blond man answered. "He's never managed to get used to living with a pack, always the odd one out. Not a good way of making friends with us." He gave Remus a grim sort of wink before giving him another push forward, off the escalator. "Word to the wise."

* * *

They took the Northern Line to Clapham North, Remus always being carefully guarded between the two other werewolves. As they got further away from the centre of the city, there were less and less people in the Underground. Once, when they got out of the train, Remus thought he saw a tall, bald dark man several yards behind him, but when he wanted to take a better look the man was gone. Still, even if he was imagining things, he felt better for the thought that Kingsley might have decided to tail him for a while, just to be sure.

The three of them walked up several flights of stairs to ground-level and emerged in a foggy street. Without pausing to look around, the blond werewolf purposefully set off down the street, expecting the brown-haired werewolf and Remus to follow him.

It was once again foggy, and brown brick houses seemed to emerge from the fog as they walked down the street. They walked at a fast pace for several minutes until they reached a wire fence which closed a small yard off from the street. The blond man looked around carefully, then pulled the wire fence away to open up a hole that could just let a man through. He motioned for Remus to climb through.

Remus did so, wondering where on earth he was going to wind up: the yard was nothing to write home about and while this was not the centre of London it was still in the city. Besides, he could hear the Underground trains pass not too far from here.

The other two werewolves had climbed through the hole as well. The blond man was in the lead again; he had walked ahead to a small brick shed with a blue iron door. The paint was coming off the door in flakes, and when Remus had approached the shed he could see that the brickwork wasn't exactly new either.

The blond werewolf had produced a set of keys, which he used to open the door. He opened the door with ease, even though it was very heavy iron, and Remus had to admire the strength of the man. At the same time, it gave him a cold feeling of fear at the thought of how that strength could be turned against him. _Word to the wise _indeed…

The opened door revealed a wide, dark room. Remus stepped inside and wondered what was going to happen next, when sudden light filled the room: the brown-haired man had lit a flashlight and was shining it down the room. Remus could now see two flights of stairs leading downwards, as if they were in an Underground station.

"Well, I think it's obvious which way we're going," the blond man said cheerfully. He had also picked up a flashlight – they had probably been stored just around the corner of the door, ready for anyone who entered – and also shone it down the flight of stairs. Remus was tempted to ask why they didn't use wands, but then realised that if these werewolves had really cut themselves off from magical society, they might not look kindly on using magical instruments, even if it was as basic and essential as a wand.

"C'mon Professor," the brown-haired man said. "Go."

Down they went. It was clear the tunnel – because that was what Remus realised it was – hadn't been used for quite a while. The concrete was old and chipping, and there was dust everywhere. In the light of the flashlights, Remus could even sometimes see little stalagmites or stalactites that had been formed by dripping water over the years.

After having reached the bottom of the stairs, they reached a short tunnel, which ended in… an iron spiral staircase.

"Down," the brown-haired werewolf said shortly. The blond man was already descending and Remus had no choice but to follow.

Further down. Remus lost count of the steps after eighty-seven, and the stairs went on for quite some time after that. The only light still came from the two flashlights, and it was beginning to feel claustrophobic. At one point, Remus's curiosity got the better of him.

"Where are we, actually?" he asked.

"What does it look like?" the blond man said cryptically.

"I have no idea, some kind of bomb shelter, underground tunnels… in London?" Remus had never heard of that and somehow doubted it: the Underground system _and _underground tunnels _and _Gringotts bank's tunnels? It was a miracle there was still a city on top.

"Well there you go."

"What? These _are_ underground bomb shelters?" Remus said, amazed.

"Muggle bomb shelters from that war they had in the nineteen forties," the blond werewolf explained. "Connected with that underground train thing of theirs. They never did anything with it after the war so we took if off their hands."

"You bought it off them?"

The blond man snorted derisively. "Bought? Of course not."

They had by now finally reached the end of the stairs and ended up in a long tunnel. There were still no lights but there was noise: they could hear the trains from the London Underground pass by. It shook the dust on the floor.

"Almost there," the blond man said. "I can hear the others already."

And indeed, as they walked further down the tunnel Remus could hear voices not too far away from them. They reached another concrete flight of stairs and went down it, ending up in a tunnel that looked like it was right under the one they had just come from. This tunnel was even lower than the one above. The idea that he was now God knew how far underground made Remus feel uncomfortable.

The voices they had heard came from a small group of people a few yards further into the tunnel. Remus could see a few bunk beds in the dark behind them, and there were candles put here and there on the concrete. The main source of light, however, came from a small fire that was lit in the centre of the tunnel. The group of six was gathered around it, and all looked up when they heard Remus and his guides (guards?) approach. Their yellow eyes shone eerily in the firelight.

"It's us," the blond man announced. He walked towards the group and rather theatrically gestured to Remus. "And our package."

"That's him?' A woman (at least, Remus guessed from her voice she was a woman: he couldn't see as she was completely wrapped in a mouldy blanked with only her eyes and hair visible) said, eyeing Remus suspiciously.

"He says he is, his suitcase says he is and Dodger says he is, and Greyback'll have to be satisfied with that," the blond man shrugged. He crouched down at the fire. "Got anything to eat?"

He was handed some cold sausages while the rest scooted up to make room for Remus and the brown-haired man. The brown-haired man was handed a flask of something but Remus got nothing.

"So," the blond man said, devouring the sausages, "how're things here?"

"Okay," a young man shrugged. He was wearing a torn army jacket and he had spiky, jet-black hair. "Nothing much we can do here until Greyback gives us new orders."

"And that make take a while," the woman said. "Don't think he's going to be in this side of the country for another month."

"What?" Remus blurted out before he could stop himself. At once, all eyes were on him, and most looked as if they thought: '_he can _talk'

"What?" the woman asked almost friendly.

"Another month?" Remus repeated. "But I thought… I was going to meet him, well, sooner."

The woman sighed. "Francis, didn't you tell him?"

"Tell him what?" the blond man said through a mouthful of sausage.

"That he wasn't going to meet Greyback right away," the woman said. She turned to Remus again. "He's always terribly busy and it's usually very hard to even get him to agree to be in the same place as you are, let alone actually meet him. Francis, what did he tell you to do?"

Francis shrugged. "Told me to pick up Lupin and bring him somewhere safe where we knew where he was and could keep an eye on him. Greyback would decide later when he'd meet with him. So I got Lupin from Dodger – " Francis nodded to Remus as if to say 'there he is'. " – and brought him here."

"And we're supposed to keep him here for a month?" The young werewolf in the army jacket sounded reluctant; apparently he doubted Remus would be of much use to him.

"Well no, I'll bring him somewhere else tomorrow," Francis said. "I just needed a place for him to stay which wasn't with Dodger."

"Well alright," the young werewolf said. "But take him out tomorrow. I don't want any more people hanging around here than necessary, it'd get too packed."

"In these huge tunnels?" Francis grinned.

"You know what I mean. We'd get on each others nerves, and the last thing we need is to kill each other because of cabin fever. That wouldn't much help the Cause."

The term made Remus look up, and as he looked at the young werewolf and saw the enthusiastic, almost fanatical glint in his eyes he realised the younger man was probably exactly the kind of man to use those kind of words and to make the capitals audible. _Good God, _he thought. _I'm deep, deep underground sitting in an underground tunnel around a fire with a revolutionary werewolf who's talking about their Cause, which is basically to fight and destroy everything my friends, family and… previous life stands for. _

_And__ there's no way I'm going to get out. _

* * *

Tonks didn't think she had ever seen Roderick Savage more nervous and high-strung than now, when the Hogwarts Express was due to arrive at Hogsmeade Station at any moment. He kept pacing the platform, checking to see that each Auror on the team was where he or she should be. They had got reinforcements just for this evening, six extra Aurors just to make sure and to keep the children guarded. The extra security didn't comfort Savage; if anything it made him more nervous. Tonks contemplated telling Savage it would be alright, nothing would happen, but she'd seen him snarl at Pandora Proudfoot when Pandora'd told him just that, so she thought the better of it.

Tonks herself was stationed near the entrance, where the carriages to Hogwarts were waiting. She had kept herself occupied by looking at the Thestrals, who were patiently waiting for the students to arrive. Tonks had been able to see Thestrals for quite some time now – most Aurors could – and it had always amazed and slightly unsettled her how creatures could be so graceful and beautiful when they were associated with something so horrible as death.

The whistle of a train made her look up. Quite suddenly, the bright red steam-engine of the Hogwarts Express appeared out of the fog and thundered into the station, its wheels squeaking loudly as it slowed down and finally came to a stop. Virtually seconds later, the doors were opened by the Prefects and students began to pour out, laughing, talking, drawing their cloaks around them to protect against the fog.

For a few moments, Tonks was taken back to her own schooldays, especially when she heard Hagrid's voice, calling out for the first-years to follow him. They would leave the station on the other side of the platform, taking the more scenic route in little boats across the lake. The rest of the students swarmed to the other side, climbing into the carriages which, as soon as four students had climbed into them, set off towards Hogwarts. There were so many students that Tonks could hardly take a good look at them before they were lost in the fog and in the dark again. She was suddenly grateful for the extra Aurors – it was near impossible to have any real control over a mass of children like this.

All the while, she had kept an eye out for the Weasley children and Harry and Hermione. Roderick Savage had given her explicit orders to keep an eye out for Harry, to make sure he got into a carriage and to Hogwarts. Besides that, she wanted to see the other children too – it was always nice to talk to them. She knew they had to come this way too, so she was surreptitiously craning her neck to spot them. Nevertheless, it was Ginny who saw her first; after all, Ginny didn't have a job to do at the same time.

"I didn't know you were here!" she said enthusiastically.

"Auror work," Tonks said in way of explaining. "We have to watch out for the lot of you."

"And Harry, I expect," Ginny remarked perceptively. Tonks gave a brief smile and nodded.

"Somehow he's important. I don't know what it is," she said with a hint of sarcasm. "Do you know where he is?"

Ginny shrugged. "No idea. I saw him during the trip, but he went off on his own near the end. Haven't seen him in nearly half an hour."

"Hm," Tonks said pensively. She absent-mindedly scanned the crowd for dark hair which pointed every-which way, but without success.

"I'm sure he'll show up eventually," Ginny said. "I haven't seen Ron or Hermione either and he's usually with them."

"Yeah, you're right," Tonks said.

"I'd best be off anyway, before all the carriages are gone. See you!" Ginny waved and disappeared into the crowd.

Tonks kept looking for Harry, this task becoming easier as most of the students had taken off. But he wasn't there. She had seen Ron and Hermione pass without noticing her, but Harry hadn't been with them. Slowly, the station emptied, until the last of the carriage was gone and there were only adults left in the station. It was odd to see – finally – what happened after all the students had left. Tonks interestedly watched how the witch with the trolley with sweets and snacks took the trolley out of the train and stored it in a low, brick building off the side of Hogsmeade Station; it wouldn't be needed again until the Christmas holidays, when most of the students would take the train back to London. The driver of the train hopped out of the engine and went inside the Station building, coming out again with a steaming mug of coffee.

"Tonks! C'mere!"

She looked up and saw Roderick beckoning for her to come, so she obligingly walked over to him and joined the circle of Aurors standing around him.

"Are we all here?" he said as soon as she'd joined them. "Good. Well, I think that didn't go too badly. All the students are on their way to Hogwarts and nobody was attacked or hurt. Thank you all, good job, now let's get inside and get warm."

"Hear, hear!" everybody agreed, nodding fervently. They had all been standing in the fog for several hours; water was dripping from their hair and clothes and most of them were freezing despite it being only early September. The six extra Aurors Disapparated almost immediately, glad to go home. The three Aurors Tonks was stationed at Hogsmeade with, set off for their lodgings. Tonks, however, lingered behind, hesitating a bit although she didn't really know why.

"You're not coming?" Pandora Proudfoot asked, looking around and noticing her.

"I think I'll go and see the train off," Tonks said evasively. "Wallow in my memories."

Pandora smiled. "Don't indulge in them. Try to remember that being a student wasn't half as much fun as you now think it was."

Tonks smiled back. "I'll remember it."

She watched her colleagues disappear in the fog, and then walked slowly down the platform again, looking at the train which was softly hissing as it cooled down. She wondered vaguely why she hadn't seen Harry, why he hadn't been with Ron and Hermione. Perhaps she should have said something to Roderick about it, but she didn't want to cause too much of a consternation – after all, she might just not have seen him. None of the other had mentioned Harry, so perhaps he had been spotted by someone else and was safely on a carriage to Hogwarts. Somehow, though, she had the feeling that wasn't the case. Her Auror instinct (as Kingsley sometimes called that nagging feeling at the back of his head) told her something was going on. Harry wasn't at Hogwarts, but nobody had seen him either…

Her mind helpfully supplied her with a memory of last year: Harry in his room at the Dursleys, packing his trunk, holding a shimmering silvery garment in his hand. An Invisibility Cloak.

This realisation came to her at about the same moment she realised that one compartment had the blinds drawn down while the other windows had light blazing from them. Also at that moment, she saw the driver of the train walk towards the engine, beginning to fire it up for the journey home.

Cursing under her breath, she ran towards the train and jumped on it, moving quickly towards the compartment. Even if the blinds had been drawn for no reason at all, it was suspicious enough to check. She hurried into the compartment – which was empty. She looked around, but there was no place a boy Harry's size could hide. She just thought of groping around (and looking rather stupid) in case Harry was wearing his Cloak, when the train gave a large lurch as the engine came into motion, and she saw something moving on the floor. It was barely perceptible – specks of dust moving in a way they shouldn't – but hopeful. She reached down with her hand outstretched and felt the sudden touch of a velvety fabric. She grabbed it firmly – grabbed thin air, it seemed – and pulled, revealing Harry lying on his side on the floor, his face covered in blood, his nose apparently broken.

"Wotcher, Harry," Tonks said. Harry didn't move, and seeing his stiff position she judged that he was probably Petrified, so she waved her wand, muttering a counter spell. This worked; Harry sat upright immediately, wiping the blood from his face with his sleeve (Tonks' mother would have had a fit if she had seen it). He looked up at her.

She knew they didn't have time for small-talk; the train was already moving out of the station, gaining speed. "We'd better get out of here, quickly," she said matter-of-factly. "Come on, we'll jump." Harry said nothing but followed her quickly as she hurried out of the compartment again and down the corridor towards a door. She yanked it open, revealing the platform moving past them at increasing speed. Without looking if Harry was following her, simply assuming that he was, she jumped off the train, nearly tripping as she landed on the unmoving stones of the platform. A thud and some hasty footsteps as Harry tried to find his balance again told her he'd got out of the train as well. As she straightened up, she could just see the scarlet train going around the corner, disappearing from view.

Now she could finally get a good look at Harry. He was still in his summer-, Muggle-clothing, now stained with blood from his bleeding nose, which was badly bend and looked extremely painful. Harry himself looked rather embarrassed and angry, more at being caught in such a situation than that somebody had broken his nose.

"Who did it?" Tonks asked. She handed him the Invisibility Cloak back.

"Draco Malfoy," he said reluctantly. "Thanks for… well…"

"No problem." Tonks couldn't help but think grimly that the Malfoy family seemed to have started a tradition of hurting Harry and his friends. But she didn't linger too much on that thought; there were more important things at hand. "I can fix your nose if you stand still," she said.

Harry seemed a bit apprehensive at this, and perhaps no wonder given her record of clumsiness. But he nodded in agreement. He closed his eyes as Tonks raised her wand and pointed it to his nose.

"_Episkey_."

A thin blue thread of light shot from her wand and curled over his nose for a moment, then it disappeared. Harry's nose visibly straightened and seemed to click into place. It still looked rather gruesome, what with the dried blood around it, but it wasn't broken anymore.

Harry opened his eyes and felt his nose, relief spreading over his face when he felt how straight it was. "Thanks a lot!"

Tonks didn't linger on it. "You'd better put that Cloak back on, and we can walk up to the school," she instructed. She waved her wand, conjuring a Patronus, a large four-legged creature of which she still wasn't quite sure whether it was a wolf or just a really large dog, which galloped off towards Hogwarts.

"Was that a Patronus?" Harry asked curiously. It was odd to talk to him now: he'd put the Cloak on so the only sign of him being there was his disembodied voice.

"Yes, I'm sending word to the castle that I've got you, or they'll worry," Tonks answered. "Come on, we'd better not dawdle." She set off for the school, counting on Harry to follow her.

They walked down the lane that the carriages had taken earlier that evening. This wasn't the safest route, or even the most scenic, but it was the shortest and that was what counted in Tonks' opinion. They walked in silence for a while until Harry spoke.

"How did you find me?"

"I noticed that you hadn't left the train and I knew you had that Cloak," Tonks explained. "I thought you might be hiding for some reason. When I saw the blinds were drawn down on that compartment I thought I'd check."

"But what are you doing here, anyway?"

"I'm stationed in Hogsmeade now, to give the school extra protection." She gave her answered shortly, not really eager to have an entire conversation.

"Is it just you who's stationed up here, or – ?" Harry asked on.

"No, Proudfoot, Savage and Dawlish are here too."

"Dawlish, that Auror Dumbledore attacked last year?"

"That's right."

They were silent again. They followed the carriage trails, walking in the middle of the road; it wasn't as if there was anyone else on it anyway. Tonks didn't mind at all that Harry was quiet. She liked him, she had always liked him, but now she realised that seeing him reminded him of… people and moments she'd really rather forget. She knew how close Harry and Sirius had been, but rather than comfort him in his loss it made him want to shout at him. _Don't you realise it was all your fault, if you hadn't been so stupid? He would never have gone to the Ministry if not for you! He would never have met my… my Aunt if you hadn't gone there first! None of this would have happened! _We _would never have had to fight there if not for you! _But she couldn't say it. She couldn't bring up the energy to blame him out loud, but silently she did.

After about half an hour, they finally reached the gate. The wrought-iron gates to Hogwarts were shut with heavy chains and padlocks which had been reinforced by magic; Tonks could nearly hear it sizzling, it was so powerful.

Harry pulled off his Cloak, looking up at the gate and the winged boars on top of the pillars on each side of it. He made to pull it open, then noticed the chains. He pulled out his wand. "_Alohomora_!"

"That won't work on these," Tonks said calmly. "Dumbledore bewitched them himself."

Harry gave her a look of annoyance, then looked up at the gate again. "I could climb a wall," he suggested.

"No, you couldn't. Anti-intruder jinxes on all of them. Security's been tightened a hundredfold this summer."

"Well then. I suppose I'll just have to sleep out here and wait for morning." Harry was looking increasingly annoyed at her apparent uncooperative behaviour. She, on the other hand, was getting increasingly annoyed with his rather headstrong behaviour, so she was glad to see a light appear in the distance. She pointed at it.

"Someone's coming down for you. Look."

However, rather than it being Hagrid, as she had hoped, it was a person she wasn't exactly glad to see. It was Snape. He was wrapped in a pitch-black cloak and was wearing black gloves as well so the only flesh visible was that of his face. In the darkness of the night, it gave the odd effect of him being nothing but a bodiless floating face.

"Well, well, well," he sneered, holding up a lantern to look at both of them. "Nice of you to turn up, Potter, although you have evidently decided that the wearing of school robes would detract from your appearance." He took out his wand and tapped the chain which locked the gate; it snaked back with a loud rattle. The gates opened with a creak.

"I couldn't change, I didn't have my – " Harry began hotly, but Snape cut him off. He turned to Tonks.

"There is no need to wait, Nymphadora," he said smoothly; Tonks was sure he was intentionally using the hated first name to set her off. "Potter is quite – ah – safe in my hands."

"I meant Hagrid to get the message," she said crossly.

"Hagrid was late for the start-of-term feast, just like Potter here, so I took it instead." He stepped back to allow Harry to pass through the gate, but kept his eyes on Tonks. "And incidentally," he added with a sneer which promised nothing good, "I was interested to see your new Patronus." He shut the gate with a snap as Tonks looked up, alarmed. "I think you were better off with the old one. The new one looks weak."

Tonks didn't know what to say to this. She felt a rush of anger surge through her; for a moment she was quite prepared to hex Snape into next week. The change of her Patronus hadn't evaded her. Quite the opposite: it had surprised and worried her, especially when she saw what shape it had now taken. It was either a really large dog, reminding her of Sirius and, thus, of the fact that he was dead, or it was a wolf or a werewolf, which reminded her of Remus and the fact that he was also… unavailable. Either way, every time she conjured the Patronus she was reminded of the fact that both the people she had grown to love in the past year and a half were now gone. Snape insulting her Patronus, calling it weak, was in effect calling both Sirius and Remus and her love for them weak, and the sudden shock of it was incredibly painful.

However, before she could say something, Snape had walked away. Harry followed him, looking over his shoulder one more time. "Goodnight," he called. "Thanks for… everything."

"See you, Harry," Tonks said, hoping she didn't sound as miserable as she felt. Seconds later, Harry had disappeared in the fog, and not long after the already dim light of Snape's lantern had disappeared as well.

Tonks was left in the darkness. For a moment she felt as if she was going to burst into tears. Her eyes and throat burned and she blinked furiously to stop tears flowing down. After a while, she'd got control of herself again.

_Don't be stupid, Tonks_, she told herself. _Snape's just a miserable old git, not worthy of getting affected by. He just likes to rile people up, it's what he gets his kicks from. You're better than that. _But she wasn't sure whether that was enough to undo the sting of his words. Annoying how negative words always have a more lasting impression than positive words.

She sighed and turned around, beginning the long walk back to Hogsmeade. Although she had three colleagues there, they weren't real friends, and right now she had the feeling that she was going from one lonely place to the next.


End file.
